


Ducky

by QuimeraTheTraveller



Series: The Duckyverse, I guess [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: A VERY long Saving Fives fic, Abandonment Issues, Action/Adventure, Angst with a Happy Ending, Biology/Ecology/Evolution nerdyness, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Crying, Earthling in Star Wars galaxy, Family Fluff, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort With Plot, Memeing in space, Multi, Non-Chronological, Not a crack fic, OC's father is not a Jedi, Order 66 won't happen on my watch, Platonic Kissing, Platonic Relationships, Politically critic, Spontanious Adoptions, Swearing, Team as Family, The 0th, Wink wink nudge nudge, and let's not lie to ourselves if you are in this fandom you do, and the Separatists, count that there is character death, if you care about clones, lesbian butch OC, meta jokes, nor a Sith, war is stressfull and my children are allowed to cry, with the Republic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2020-05-14 03:16:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 50
Words: 251,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19264822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuimeraTheTraveller/pseuds/QuimeraTheTraveller
Summary: Earthling Dani Luna travells to a galaxy far far away in search for her father, and she won't hesitate to do it in her own terms and arranging a clone smuggling net.This fic includes things like:-Dani living with the Jedi Order and talking shit about them-Dani learning about the Republic and talking shit about it-Dani joining the GAR and going to train on Kamino with the clones-Adventures and missions with the 0th-The 0th gets a loth cat-Dani doing illegal things. And Ian helping her-Chilling at 79's and their ship-And finally... saving FivesHurt/Comfort, with a plot because I have connected the dots. Yes, I have connected them





	1. Laa'ka

**Author's Note:**

> For the sake of story-telling, The Clone Wars will be way longer than in canon. When canon characters appear, picture them with the canon age.

Dani could sense it.

The flicker of life, barely holding on, spread wide all over the battlefield. She could feel their fear, the loneliness, and it was heart-breaking. With tears in her eyes, she sent a wave of comfort: _We are coming,_ she said: _I hear you, I know where you are, hold on._

She turned, relieved to see that her medic team had readied themselves while she was spacing out.

“Six at the east: one critical. Four at the west: two of them are bleeding heavily. Three more at the north-west; non-critical but they are panicking. One at the north-east... I—”

She chocked on her words. He was dying. That trooper was dying and he was okay with it but she was NOT.

“Grab the speedsters and keep your comms open, let your escorts do their job!”, she yelled over her shoulder, already Force-running across the battlefield.

Dani passed some troopers that were limping their way back to base, either alone or in pairs. She shouted at them to wait for pick up if they felt too tired, promised them that they wouldn’t be left behind.

They had to believe her. She was a General, after all, and her words had value.

She skidded to a halt next to one of the hundreds of white figures littering the ground, the main difference about that in particular being that it still irradiated life-force. Faint, but there.

“Hey”, she huffed, catching her breath, “Hey, trooper, can you hear me?”

A pained whine was all the answer she got, but it was better than nothing. She gently rolled him onto his back, doing her best to blanket him with a calm aura.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, I’m here, you are going to be fine”, she breathed, slipping off his helmet and letting a hand hover over the darkened armour.  She could smell the burn that it hid. She just hoped it wasn’t still eating at his tissues.

That was what the hand was for, though: Force-healing. The power that had been watched in awe back at the Jedi Temple, where some so called Masters had told her how rare it was to have that gift, even more for somebody who had come so late to train in the Force.

Dani didn’t give a shit as long as it worked.

The trooper coughed harshly and blinked fast, expression turning into a grimace as he returned to consciousness.

“Hey there”, she tried to smile, putting her free hand to work too.

She gave him a moment to pull his thoughts together, and concentrated on stopping the burn damage, taking a glance at his haircut and tattooed crescent moon on his cheek before going deeper and gently acknowledging his Force-signature.

“Do you have a name, trooper?”, she asked gently when he locked eyes with her.

He closed his eyes, working his mouth.

Okay, severe exhaustion, or maybe concussion. Dani sent a wave of energy through his body to check. Exhaustion it was.

“Laa’ka”, he wheezed.

She nodded sharply, giving a somewhat sad smile. The movement made her feel light-headed, so she abandoned her kneeling position to sit on her butt.

“Okay, Laa’ka. I’m Dani. Dani Luna. I’m going to stay here and stabilize you until one of my men can come and pick you up with a speedster, okay? You are going to be alright.”

He shook his head from side to side, and she couldn’t tell if he was trying to deny something or was just confused.

“It’s going to be okay”, she whispered soothingly, and knew that she could spare a hand to stroke his hair in an effort to comfort him.

He exhaled tiredly, surrendering to her care. She looked at him sadly, knowing that she and her team were good enough to help him recover, but hating that he had to be in this situation at all.

Soon, the sound of an approaching speedster called her attention and she looked up, brown eyes piercing the helmet of its rider.

“Pedal”, she greeted.

The clone dismounted, detaching the stretcher off the vehicle and bringing it over.

“General”, he nodded, and together they carefully moved Laa’ka on it. “Shades is already back at the medtent tending to the critically injured. Commander Ian has requested to speak to you.”

“Sure”, she replied, but stood up and turned around, surveying her surroundings. So many bodies, and not a hint of life left except for the three of them and some more than were already on their way to base.

She released a shaky sigh before turning around and mounting behind Pedal, plastering herself against his back and hugging his waist tightly, not even bothering to try to hide that she needed reassurance.

“I hate this”, she spitted out of the blue, a tear being left behind in the wind.

“...I know”, the pilot answered, his voice neutral. “Let’s... let’s just focus on keeping or people together for the moment, okay?”, he added, softer this time.

Dani sniffed loudly, letting go of him for a moment to dry her face.

“Okay.”

The speedster finally came to a halt. Some troopers in dirty, but otherwise white armour got up from where they were resting outside the medtent, converged on them and hauled the stretcher away, disappearing of their sight. She made to follow, but Pedal stopped her gently.

“The Commander, sir.”

“Does it have to be now?”, she asked, and her eyes were pleading.

In every other battalion, that kind of interaction would be mind-blowing to the clones: Generals were the ones to give orders, their will had to be above the ones that served under them or the chain of command would crumble. They shouted when their orders weren’t carried, threatened with demerits and reconditioning...

But not with Dani.

Dani, the young, barely twenty years old reg-born that had appeared out of nowhere, who had been immediately admitted into the Jedi Temple and left not even a year after only to kick in the door in Kamino and take the training that the GAR had deemed necessary to be able to grant her the rank of General without her being a Jedi. Dani, whose silence expressed her emotions way better than any kind of shouting or gesticulating. Who had trained with some of the men that now served under her, who had been one of them and still was.

Who cared for them, but still carried on with her duties, if not too close to deadlines.

“Alright. Check on them. I’ll tell the Commander you are here.”

“Thanks”, she smiled at him briefly.

Pedal turned around, on his way to the command tent, shaking his head slightly.

_Thanks_ , she said. As if she needed his permission to do anything.

 

Dani entered the tent and immediately plastered herself against the fabric, letting way to a medic. She made sure she was mostly out of the way before taking in the space.

She could hear groans and gasps of pain, but at least nobody was screaming at the moment. The amount of suffering that was in the tent was making her a little sick, so she closed her eyes a moment to block most of it out, exhaling slowly.

Somebody put a hand on her shoulder and she startled.

“Are you injured?”, Shades, her CMO asked her, his eyes staring into her soul, trying to detect a lie that didn’t even exist yet.

“Just tired”, she said, knowing that he didn’t take an ‘I’m fine’ for an answer.

Tiredness was a state that he considered truthful after a battle. Not ‘fine’. Nobody could be ‘fine’ after what they lived through.

“Do you need my help?”, she added, resting her hand on his arm and squeezing slightly.

He squeezed her shoulder back before retreating his hand and straightening his back a bit.

“We are almost done with stabilizing the wounded, sir. We’ll be ready for the evac, we just have to pack the equipment. We had had to ration the painkillers, so if you can do one of your Jedi tricks...”

“Force-user tricks”, she corrected with a grin, turning it to a genuine, if not a bit tired smile. She patted his shoulder plate before making her way down the crowded corridors.

Dani kneeled beside a writhing clone, cupping his cheek.

“It’s okay”, she whispered, sending calm to his agitated mind and stroking him gently with her thumb.

His breathing eased, and soon he laid still.

She left his side swiftly, heading for the next source of pain and repeating the process, over and over again, doing her best to change her words, to acknowledge all of the men under her command.

God, she hated this so much.

Hated that they were hers. Hated that they were slaves, that most of them were happy to be like that. Hated the war, hated it’s stupid reasons, hated the Republic and hated that she couldn’t do more to help the agonizing man in front of her because the stupid Force-healing took up too much stupid life-force and she couldn’t use that stupid power when it was FUCKING NECESSARY!!!

Dani gasped loudly and pulled her hands back, aware that she had been close to hurting the trooper she was trying to help. She stayed put, closing her eyes tightly in an effort to calm herself down, knowing that trying to get back at offering comfort would be irresponsible in her agitated state.

A gloved hand buried itself among her short curly hair, scratching her softly. She looked up, recognizing him by the wide black cross above the left pectoral of his armour.

“Hi, Ian”, she greeted her Commander.

“You okay?”, he stepped back, leaving her room to stand.

“Lost it for a second”, she admitted quietly, getting up. “Talk?”

“Yeah.”

He turned around, and Dani followed him to the command tent. She sat down heavily on one of the crates, sighing lengthily. Her eyes were starting to sting.

She looked up at him through her fingers.

“What is it?”

Ian was scrolling over something on his datapad.

“I need you to sign the request for supplies”, he passed her the device.

Dani looked over it: everything was neatly classified and organized alphabetically.

“Did you add...?”

“Your special supplies, yes. If you sign now they will be delivered on time.”

She hummed in gratefulness, signing the document lazily.

“There’s something else.”

The General sighed loudly, humouredly, giving him the ‘I know what this is about’ stare.

“You can’t run off into the battlefield like that. You are supposed to coordinate us”, he said, yet again, with the same posture as always: arms crossed in front of him, back straightened in an attempt to appear imposing.

Dani blinked at him, empty eyes taking in his buzz cut black hair, the thin beard that framed his face and the dark bags under his eyes.

“We have already talked about this”, she said softly. “I can’t do it. Not like that”, she shook her head, letting it sink between her raised arms.

She heard Ian shifting, and saw him kneeling down in front of her.

“Every one of them could be him”, she wheezed, sobs now escaping her throat.

A hand rested on her knee.

“I know”, he mused, “Just... Don’t go alone. If you have to run off to save a life, at least have someone on your side to rely orders around, okay?”

“What for?”, she snorted bitterly, “It’s not as if I’m any good at that.”

“Hey”, now he forced her arms apart, waiting for her to look at him. “None of that. You completed your training: I’m a witness, Shade’s a witness. You CAN lead us, and we know you have what is necessary for it.”

They stared into each other eyes, and Dani cried.

Ian held her, keeping her together until she could do it by herself.

 

The evac was swift. The injured were shipped out first, followed by equipment and some more troopers. Dani was standing a few feet away of the last crates, surveying the now abandoned battlefield.

“General Luna”, Ian said behind her. “We are ready to leave.”

“Give me a second”, she replied anxiously, head turning to every corner of the landscape.

_Nothing._

“General.”

“A moment.”

_Nothing._

“Dani”, his voice warned, and then there were hands on her shoulders, turning her around to face him. “There’s nobody else there. We retrieved everyone we could.”

She closed her eyes, and sighed. “Okay”, she said. “Okay.”

She did one last check, one last _I’m sorry_ into the Force, and she walked up to the larty.


	2. Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First contact

The day she had arrived to the galaxy, the disturbance in the Force rattled every corner of it. It felt as if a great weight had been dropped on the balance of the Force.

Ships suffered turbulences in the vacuum of space, the sleeping woke suddenly and the ones that were already awake fell silent all of a sudden, freezing under the gaze of eyes that were not there.

As soon as it had started, it ended, an ethereal trace leading to a far away spot of nothingness: only uncharted space past it. And despite the change, the balance did not shift.

“Strong in the Force, this being is”, Yoda hummed thoughtfully to the Jedi Council. “Find them, we must. If the Sith make them fall, all lost will be.”

“How are we going to do that?”, Windu asked. “Whatever and wherever they are, they are hiding their signature, and we know nothing else.”

“Maybe they will slip again”, Plo Koon pondered. “It felt like they lost control for a moment, and their signature flooded out of them, but they scrambled to put themselves back together, to hide. Maybe they are a child. Maybe they are scared, and don’t know what’s happening to them. Maybe they will try to figure it out, and then they will slip again.”

“We can’t wait that long. Who knows what the Sith are doing to locate them”, Aayla frowned.

“We can’t go around wasting time and resources, either”, Kenobi shrugged.

Everybody turned to look when Yoda giggled.

“Perhaps nothing is what we must do. On their way to us, they are.”

The Jedi fell silent, each one of them doing their own rituals to focus. Some closed their eyes, some turned their heads, some lifted their chins.

 

The ship that had picked Dani up had made a stop on a barren planet. She was torn between staying in her cabin and going out to explore. They had told her, in that language that she had no memory of ever hearing before but could perfectly understand and speak, that they would be docked for the equivalent of some hours.

The fear of going out and being left behind was what was making her hands shake and her heart thump loudly. Maybe the fear of the unknown was playing a part on it, too.

_Fuck it_ , she thought to herself. _You have already left your planet. This is gonna be your life from now on._

She took a couple of deep breaths, grabbed her backpack and stepped out.

 

She made sure to memorize how the ship looked like before heading to a nearby market. People of species that she could have never imagined before walked around, not as nearly as astonished to see her as she was with them.

What, were humans that common? That BORING?

She decided that it was better this way. If she didn’t attract attention, it meant she wouldn’t attract the wrong kind of attention. So she wandered around, observing the people and wondering about their evolutive scales, peeking at what was on sale. She saw what seemed like fruits (imported and very expensive, no doubt), some sort of cereal, and spare parts, lots and lots of spare parts for machinery.

A droid rolled past her and she turned around to stare at it until it left her sight. She bumped into somebody: a tall, insect alike being that hissed at her. Dani used her sweetest voice to mutter an apology, and they replied with what she interpreted as an indulgent sound.

They turned around and left without any fuss, so that was good.

She continued with her exploration and stopped in a crystal shop, staring with wide eyes and letting her jaw drop at their beauty.

The big eyed seller chuckled at her expression, offering her a sample to touch.

And she behaved, allowing them to watch her carefully, to make sure that she wasn’t stealing nor she was the distraction.

Dani wasn’t the kind of person that felt comfortable around people, but one-on-one? That she could do.

So she used her sweet tone yet again, asking about properties of the minerals and glossing over what she remembered of geology class, pulling out the ‘It’s my first time off-planet’ card, which would either be an invitation to swindle her or be a reassurance that she meant no harm, if not both.

Maybe she had more charm that she thought, because the seller spoke excitedly about different types of planet cores and tectonic plates. And Dani actually listened, marvelled by the knowledge that was being granted to her.

They finally offered her a chair and they talked, and talked, and talked, until she reached some level of trust that she didn’t know it existed, and the seller disappeared inside their local, coming out with a metal box, and checked that nobody was watching them before opening it to let her peek inside.

It was the most gorgeous crystal she had ever seen. It was of cobalt blue, and for a second she mistook it for a sapphire, but that was impossible, because sapphires didn’t sing.

“What is it?”, she asked in awe.

“Kyber crystal”, they smiled. “Beautiful, and very, very rare. The day I get tired of this, I’m gonna sell it and retire.”

“I love it”, she breathed. “Maybe we can make an exchange? I have some stuff from my planet, so it would be exclusive.”

They laughed dryly.

“Kid, whatever you could offer me, it does not compare to a kyber crystal.”

“Oh...”, she breathed in disappointment, but decided to drop the subject.

They instead spoke about volcanism until a member of her ship’s crew passed by and patted her on the shoulder, warning her that they would be leaving soon.

“Let me get you a nice sample I have, as a souvenir”, the seller said, and walked inside.

Dani’s eyes darted to the metal box. She bit her lip nervously. She didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to steal, but that crystal SUNG and it was so amazing...!

Her arm was already rising to snatch it but she shouldn’t, she shouldn’t, she—

She took the crystal. She took the crystal, knocked the chair over and ran to the crowd, hearing only the enraged shouts when she was already disappearing in it.

And she got to her ship, to her cabin, and took out the kyber crystal, and smiled at its song.

 

And that’s what the Jedi Masters felt: a kyber crystal in the distance and getting closer, resonating weakly with a void where someone should be.

“They are coming to Coruscant”, Windu blinked, straightening up.

“We shall ready a party to receive them as soon as they land”, Koon nodded.

“Or get a ship to escort them. The Sith could already be on their way”, Ki-

Adi-Mundi stressed.

“Already in Republic space, they are”, Yaddle said calmly, “Not much they can do, there is.”

“We can’t take risks with this affair. I propose to send an escort” the Cerean insisted.

“It might not be on our best interests”, Plo hummed. “If we force ourselves on them, they might feel inclined to refuse us.”

“So you propose to leave them in reach of our enemies?”

“They had been in it for as long as they had been in the galaxy, so, why not?”

“We shall have a ship ready in case it is needed, but we will await for them on the surface”, Windu sentenced. “The sitting is suspended.”

 

Dani walked out of the transport, frowning when she realised that she wasn’t standing on the planet’s surface, but some kind of sub-level. It looked dirty, and shady, and considering that about 80% of the people around were wearing hoods and other not-so-subtle disguises, she decided it was a good idea to book it out of there.

So she fastened her backpack and walked calm but firmly, as if she knew where she was going. Which she did not. The crew had told her that Coruscant was the best place to start her search, but she still didn’t know who she should ask to.

_What are my chances of finding him in a galaxy?_

She shook off that thought: _You haven’t made it all the way here just to give up. Already thought about that before leaving Earth, remember? And you came anyways._

She sighed, setting her mind on doing whatever was necessary to reach her goal. For the moment, she would explore the city she was in.

A shudder at the back of her neck made her twirl around. There was nobody there, not that her eyes could see. But if she unfocused her sight, and listened below the hum of the blood flowing inside her ears, and breathed quietly, she could feel them: the person that had climbed up a wall to barely escape her field of sight in time; the two that were waiting at the end of the alley, around the corners.

She stood completely still, considering her next move. A direct confrontation wouldn’t do her any good, so she decided to play dumb and backtrack to do as if she were investigating something that had called her attention before deciding to take another street. She snickered at the pang of disconcert that emanated from the two hidden figures and quickened her pace.

Oh, that was fun!

Dani had managed to make their heads spin for the fourth time, now seriously considering finding a place to hide, when she started feeling breathless. The change in diet and probably atmosphere too was trying to catch up with her, and she had exhausted herself uselessly and now those stalkers were going to catch her and...

She turned another corner, eyes fixing on the floor before her and the small, green creature standing in it.

She screamed and lost her balance trying to turn around, tripping and falling backwards. She stared at it, eyes wide in fear and panting, body impossible tensed for when it attacked her and she had to spring to action...

But the green creature did not move. It... chuckled.

“Fear, you must not, young one”, they said.

The voice was soothing, and she did calm down a bit, just enough to put her legs under her and frown.

“Yaddle, my name is. Know yours, may I?”, she asked gently.

Dani stared at her, distrustful, but finally decided that she wouldn’t get anywhere by not talking to anyone.

“Dani”, she breathed, still observing every detail of Yaddle. “Are the other two with you?”, she huffed, defiant.

“They are”, she nodded, and raised her chin to look at somebody behind the girl.

She spun around, a hand on the floor to balance herself, and glared at the two hooded figures walking up to them.

One of them had a very, very long skull, but apart from that he looked like a regular old man.

The other was very strange and slightly intimidating: he had a metal piece covering his face and eyes, a tone of brown that she had never seen on skin before and some things she didn’t have words for curled at the sides of his head.

“You gave us quite a chase, youngling”, the first one said. When she just stared at him, he continued, taking a step forwards. “Come with us, now. We will take you to the Temple and...”

Dani hissed at him. Plainly hissed as if she were an animal about to bite at the hand he was extending, and he froze. She kept showing her teeth in a snarl, glaring daggers at him.

“We mean you no harm”, the other said softly, reaching to make his partner step back.

“I don’t know who you are”, she stressed, her stance as menacing as it could be, which in perspective was practically null.

“Apologize on their behalf, I do”, Yaddle said behind her.

Dani risked turning around, pressing her lips together for the moment.

“Waiting for you, we have been.”

“That’s ominous as fuck.”

“Lots of things, we need to explain. But take you with us against your will, we will not. Offer you a place to stay the night, allow us to. On the way, we can explain”, she said.

The human stayed silent, thinking about it.

“Okay, I will come with you. But if I feel threatened, I am leaving.”

“For your trust, I deeply thank you”, she nodded solemnly before turning around and initiating a very slow pace.

Dani followed her patiently in silence for a while, until they reached something that vaguely resembled a car.

Yaddle climbed up onto a back sit and motioned for her to get on too, while the other two climbed up on the front. She huffed in resignation and got up, doing an effort to put her faith in that whoever was piloting knew what they were doing and she wouldn’t be dying in a traffic accident millions of light-years away from home.

She stayed silent for most of the way, too busy watching the traffic and activities around her.

“Very strange for you this must be”, Yaddle hummed.

“Yeah”, she replied, not looking at her. “I don’t even know how I understand you. I have no idea what language I am speaking.”

“It’s called Basic”, the weird-looking one answered. “Most people of the galaxy can speak it, so you won’t have much trouble communicating. You say you have never heard it before?”

“Not that I remember”, she mused. “Who are you, by the way?”

He turned around a bit, presumably making polite eye-contact.

“I am Master Plo Koon, and this is Master Ki-Adi-Mundi.”

Dani stared at him, wide eyed, her mind screaming: _Run, bitch, run!_

“What kind of ‘master’?”, she asked instead, already shifting so she could jump off the transport.

And she could feel that the others knew her intentions. They stiffened slightly, choosing to remain as still as possible in an effort to appear harmless.

“’Master’ is a title that is granted to those who have proven themselves to be masters at the arts that are taught in the Jedi Order”, Plo Koon continued slowly.

“So you are artists?”, she asked, sitting at the edge of the vehicle in a clear: _I am giving you a last chance before I yeet myself out of here._

Koon chuckled softly: a calm, warm sound that made Dani yearn for something.

“Not really, but there are some of us who are. The Jedi are monks: we teach history, politics, and science, among other things. We share our discoveries and participate in diplomatic and humanitarian missions.”

She sighed tiredly, slipping to the seat.

“Exhausted you appear, dear”, Yaddle hummed softly.

“I don’t feel safe. I haven’t felt safe in some time, now”, she admitted, closing her eyes and biting back a sob.

She felt her tiny, three-fingered hand rest on hers, and turned her head to look at her.

“As long as you want, you can stay with us. Forced to be things you don’t want to do, you will not be”, she said.

And Dani believed her.


	3. The Jedi Temple I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My take on how midi-chlorians work, and other stuff

“We have her blood analysis”, Master Che announced, sitting down and visibly trying her best to stay composed.

The Jedi Masters, plus those who were at the Temple at the moment and weren’t imparting classes stared at her expectantly.

“So? How many does she have?”, Windu finally asked.

Vokara raised her head slowly to look at him.

“Incalculable”, she breathed.

There was a moment of silence where everybody frowned.

“What?”

“That’s impossible!”

“It can’t be!”

“Your devices are malfunctioning, repeat the tests!”

“SILENCE!”, Yaddle shouted, and everybody shut up. “Explain yourself, Master Che”, she nodded politely.

“I have reasons to believe that Dani does not have several aggregations of midi-chlorians spread across her body. I believe she has some in every cell.”

The room stayed silent, eyes darting in every direction, everybody making mental calculations that had too many digits to think about.

“How can this be?”, someone mussed, “How isn’t she exploding from the overload?”

“From another galaxy, she is”, Yoda hummed. “Great differences in physiology, there might be.”

“We should ask her about it”, Ki-Adi-Mundi said. “She is the one who will know herself best.”

“I agree”, Plo Koon nodded. “Is Dani in class at the moment?”

“Learning the Basic alphabet with the younglings, she is”, Yaddle answered, remembering with a small chuckle the moment when the girl had realised that she couldn’t read. She had been improving these last weeks, and soon she would be ready to take lessons with the initiates. “Refuse to come, I don’t think she will.”

A Knight was sent to fetch her, and some minutes later they walked in into the meeting room. Dani looks around and tensed a bit at the amount of eyes on her. She still wears the clothes she brought from her planet; cleans them personally and politely refuses the Jedi robes.

“...and that’s why the Kel Dor’s breathing system is actually biologically genius!”, she was explaining excitedly to the Knight.

“Uh-huh...”, he replied, not really interested.

She also actively refused to call anyone ‘Master’ or ‘Knight’.

“Hi”, she said to no-one in particular, but waved at Yaddle.

Yaddle waved back at her apprentice, her smile raising to her eyes.

“What’s up?”

“Take a sit”, Windu gestured to an empty chair.

Dani tilted her head, took an unnecessary long moment to blink at him, smirked, and did what she was told. At this point everybody expects her defiance. She isn’t openly rude, but she questions everything she is told and leaves very clear that she doesn’t take orders from anybody. The only reasons she stays at the Temple is because Yaddle has been trying to teach her to control the Force, which sometimes bursts out of her, despite her natural inclination to pull it tightly inside her.

“We would like to talk to you, about the analysis I asked from you.”

“Ah, yes”, Dani perked up. “Something unusual?”

“Actually, yes.”

The human startled a bit, eyes wide and suddenly completely still with the _Oh shit I have space leprosy and I’m going to die, aren’t I?;_ face.

“Nothing life-threatening”, Vokara was quick to reassure her, and the girl released the breath she was holding, leaning into the back of the chair. “Have you had a chance to study about midi-chlorians?”, she asked.

Dani looked up at her, an eyebrow raised.

“Mitochondria?”

“It could be. What do you know about it?”

She stared at her for a moment before her gaze unfocused, gathering up her thoughts.

“Microorganisms living in symbiosis with eukaryotic cells. They do catabolism and supply the bigger cell with energy so it can go on with its vital activities. They have their own DNA and follow a female linage. That’s, uh, mostly it. I remember a bit of studying its parts, but I don’t think I could be accurate about it, apart from the crests and inner membranes.”

“All cells?”, Che stressed.

“Uh, yeah. Unless it’s a prokaryote cell”, she added, eyes darting around as if she were still looking for information inside her brain. “What are midi-chlorians?”, she asked when she didn’t remember anything worth adding.

“They are intelligent microscopic life forms that live in symbiosis inside the cells of living beings. With enough concentration of them, they make you sensible to the Force.”

“How do you know they are intelligent?”, she asked, frowning. “Aren’t they unicellular? Does that classify here?”

“We have done research, and yes, we consider them as such.”

“Huh. Okay. What about them?”

“We have found that you have an unusual amount of midi-chlorians in your body. Way more than the average among Jedi.”

“More? Does it differ that much? I am aware some kind of cells have more mitochondria than others but I guessed it would get compensated with the ones that have less.”

“We do not have midi-chlorians in every cell. We have clusters of them.”

Dani frowned harder, her eyes darting over everyone in the room.

“You kidding?”

“I am certainly not.”

“How are you guys even alive?!”, she shrieked.

“Calm down”, Mace Windu said. “This situation is strange for all of us, but we are trying to figure it out.”

“Those clusters are enough to keep us alive”, Che continued.

Dani’s eyes were darting again over the table in front of her, slowly hunching over.

“You know the origins of these midi-chlorians?”, she asked quietly.

“They came from the centre of the galaxy.”

“Do you accept a Big Bang theory of the Universe’s expansion?”

“The Great Pulse. Yes.”

Her eyes finally focused, and she raised her head.

“There’s a theory on Earth. Not really accepted, but it is taught, because you never know. It says life might have not originated on our planet, that it might have arrived on a meteor or something. So, what if mitochondria are midi-chlorians that got flown away by the universe’s expansion? They travelled far, far away from their point of origin, to another galaxy that had nothing to do with them, but they still survived. They still found a way to form a symbiosis. If we are assuming those are strongly connected to the Force and canalise their energy, that would mean that a few midi-chlorians are enough to sustain life in THIS galaxy, but mitochondria, who are far away from their energy source, would be forced to be in every cell in order to sustain life. The Force can’t be used in my galaxy, because the centre of yours is too far away”, she finished, and looked around as is she had spaced-out for a moment.

Everybody seemed to be thinking about it, some nodding slightly.

“It does make sense”, Plo Koon said.

“It’s a good hypothesis, but I should make some tests...”, Master Che mused.

“With what subjects? It won’t be relevant if you just do it on me because you have no replicas: I could be a mutant or something, and I don’t even know which direction my galaxy is”, Dani shrugged.

There was a moment of silence, everybody staring at her.

“Know how to go back home, you do not?”, Yoda asked.

“It’s a one-way trip”, she replied dryly, sinking on the chair and refusing eye-contact.

“Leave, you may”, Yaddle said, and Dani bolted up-right and left without a word or a gesture.

 

Dani sat cross-legged with the rest of the children, her cheek leaning against a fist while she looked up at the teacher.

“Levitation of objects is one of the most basic abilities that the Force grants us”, the old woman explained calmly, a rubber ball floating over her hand. “It is basic, but that does not equal easy. Every object, as well as every being, is unique; and you will have to put special care so you have a safe control over it. Now, take a ball, each of you, and try it out.”

The teacher distributed the balls. Dani took hers and whispered a “thanks” before putting it down for a moment to watch the kids that had gotten it before her. They were pointing their hands at it, faces scrunched in concentration and effort. She smiled discreetly. They looked so cute. She was the oldest in the classroom, being seventeen years old at the moment, but she had long decided that she wasn’t gonna let that bother her. The kids were as curious of her as she was of them, and she felt more comfortable doing her first contact with other species with younglings than with adults.

Dani stared at her ball for a moment. Sure, the prospect of being able to lift things without touching them was exciting, but, really? Even just glossing over the other stuff you could do with the Force, this seemed... dumb.

Still. Yaddle said it would be a good idea if she kept up with the lessons.

So she took a calming breath, focused on the ball and its weight and the space it took and willed it into the air...

The ball exploded with a loud ‘BANG!’, startling the whole class.

Dani blinked at the mess in front of her.

“That, children, is what happens when you put too much force into it”, the teacher said calmly, taking another ball. “You got the concept right, Dani. Try to be more gentle.”

“Alright”, she mused, grateful that she wasn’t being scolded.

She took more time: another deep breath, watch the kids being so gentle that they struggle at lifting the almost non-existent weight of the ball.

She visualised herself cradling a tiny bird...

The ball exploded.

Again. This time, as if she cradled a butterfly...

‘BANG!’

Again. Holding an ant on her hand...?

Boom.

She swallowed her frustration, unable to hide the ashamed flush on her cheeks. The children were staring, some giggling.

“May I go to talk about this with Yaddle, miss?”, she asked politely, gaze distant.

“You may”, she nodded slowly. “Please, return for the afternoon classes.”

“I will”, she nodded back.

Dani stood and bowed slightly before turning around and leaving.

It was forbidden, but she ran through the hallways. She got some ugly looks, but it was worthy to let the pent up frustration and anger out. Her eyes were unseeing: she knew Yaddle’s force signature and could pin point it in the Temple, so she had no need to ask for direction.

She came to a halt in front of the library, where Yaddle was walking out from. She looked up at her and huffed.

“Hard to sense, you are”, she commented. “Feel you until you were around the corner, I did not.”

“Sorry?”, she voiced slowly, not sure if the Jedi was pointing it out as rude behaviour.

“No harm done. Seeking me out you were, yes? Something troubles you?”

Dani looked nervously at the library.

“Something happened at class”, she spoke in hurried whispers. “I was trying to make things float but... No matter what I tried, it exploded.”

“Hm. Come then. Some tests, we shall do”

Yaddle turned and motioned at her to follow.

“What kind of tests?”, the young girl mused. She had already gone through a multitude of medical checks and tests to make sure she wasn’t carrying any potential mortal diseases, get a nightmarish amount of vaccines (she wasn’t about to complain out loud but still, auch, her poor arms...), and other stuff she didn’t even knew the use for. Vokara and the other healers were nice and all but she rather not have to go there.

To her surprise, Yaddle giggled mischievously: “The fun kind!”

 

Dani lifted the wooden figurine with the Force and immediately ducked behind the durasteel cover, just in time to dodge the shrapnel of the exploding object. Yaddle giggled yet again, and despite the anxiety yelling at her that she was doing it wrong and she was shameful, Dani huffed and smiled. She rose on her knees to peek at the chaos that was the testing room:

She had taken another shot with a rubber ball, then some weird durasteel cube, then a rock from one of the gardens, some sort of space-chicken that Yaddle had very specifically asked her to sneak out from the pantry and the wooden figurine. All of it had exploded, no matter how much care she put into lifting it carefully, and their shards littered the floor. Yaddle seemed greatly amused by the situation.

“Guess I’m not really good at it, huh”, she mused, staring into the distance.

She could sense the Jedi abandoning the goofy aura that she rarely displayed.

“Strengths and weaknesses, we all have”, she spoke, clinging to Dani’s leg to climb up the cover and sit on top of it, staring at the mess too. “Deep within yourself you hide. Why it is hard to sense you, that is. Why you can’t relax and let the Force flow in and out, without requiring bursts of power to go through your walls, too”, she nodded.

Dani blinked at her.

“I am relaxed”, she frowned.

“You are not”, she huffed.

They stood in silence for a while, just thinking about their stuff.

“What should I do, then?”

“Know I do not. What should you do?”

“Uh... Find a way to fix this? Do meditation or something so I get good at it?”

“The need to be good at it, you feel?”

“Yeah, I guess... It’s what they are asking me to do at class.”

“Excel at everything, we can not”, Yaddle breathed, and turned her head to look at her. “That endorian chicken I made you steal, hum? Strictly guarded the pantry is by trained Jedi. Slip right in front of their noses, you did. Completely undetected. To train your weaknesses, a good idea is. But your strengths, you must never forget”, she added, poking with a clawed finger at her chest.


	4. Raven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rescue mission

The camp was almost taken down. Everything was packed, the transports were ready, nobody had anything else to do, so they just watched Dani tap her feet impatiently against the ground, arms crossed, staring into the distance.

Pedal walked over to her.

“Who is missing, sir?”, he asked.

“Raven”, she mused. “I’m trying to reach him but—he is not—letting me...!”

Dani exhaled loudly, catching her breath. Did her scout just block her?!

She snarled, gathering herself and sending a loud, clear message:

_I’m coming to get you, bitch._

She turned to her men.

“Listen up! Raven is in trouble again, so I’m going to fish him up! Y’all free to go and rest, but I would really, really appreciate if at least three persons stayed.”

“My Iarty is ground-bound until you are ready to leave, General”, Pedal said.

“Don’t mind staying a bit longer”, a trooper sitting on a crate raised his arm lazily.

“I’m volunteering, sir”, Laa’ka nodded sharply.

Dani graced them with a tender smile.

“Alright. Thanks. The rest of you, load up, eat something, take a shower and a nap!”

“Yessir!”, the crowd echoed.

One of them turned before stepping into the transport.

“General! What do we say to Commander Ian?”

Dani turned her head to look at him from where she had been talking to her party, going over details and pseudo-plans, and gave him a shit-eating grin before striking a dramatic pose: “ _Oh, Force, she is back on her bullshit!_ ”, and proceeded to laugh at her own joke. “Nah, really: tell him the truth. We’ll be back as soon as possible, less than six hours for sure, tell him I’m sorry and to cover for me and I swear to cover for him for the next three years”, she listed quickly.

“Copy that, sir”, the trooper nodded and jumped on the Iarty.

The tiny party didn’t wait to see them off.

 

“He is that way”, Dani pointed, already power walking towards the city in ruins.

The troopers didn’t have much trouble keeping pace, after all, their legs were a bit longer than Dani’s. She suddenly jerked her head up and turned to the unnamed trooper, a friendly smile flashing on her face.

“Hi! Have we ever spoken before? I’m Dani. What’s your name?”

It took him half a second more than what was expected to answer.

“Thread, sir.”

“Nice to meet you! Thanks for volunteering! We should hang out after this”, she spoke quickly, head turning wildly as she tried to tune with Raven. “Fuck”, she spat immediately after. “Aw come on there wasn’t much around here! The base we raided is literally in the opposite direction! I swear if it turns out that wasn’t the real objective I’m going to scream.”

“Easy, Dani”, Pedal sighed, long-suffering.

She exhaled and stopped dead on her tracks. Laa’ka almost tripped onto her as she crouched down.

“Alright, alright: I’m gonna try to get to Raven again, if the stubborn bastard stops blocking me, and see his situation. Slap me if I do something weird.”

“’kay”, the pilot answered right away, to Thread’s and Laa’ka’s surprise.

Dani sat cross legged and closed her eyes.

“Are you really gonna slap your superior?”, Thread hissed.

“She asked for it”, Pedal shrugged.

“I’m not letting you hit her”, Laa’ka growled.

“Woah, easy there, self-appointed bodyguard: she doesn’t need your protection for shit, you hear? She might say a lot of nonsense, but most of the times that nonsense is for real.”

“That... doesn’t make any sense”, Thread mumbled.

“If you want to keep being around her, better get used to it.”

“Nobody is slapping the General”, Laa’ka insisted.

“Yeah, yeah, whatev—”

He was interrupted by Dani’s agonizing scream. Her eyes rolled back into her head for a second before she leaned forwards violently and clutched at spots on her torso, trying to get a hold of her shaky pants. Two hands were on here immediately, Laa’ka and Pedal steading her.

“They are torturing him”, she gasped. “That’s why he was trying to block me.”

She got up on unsteady legs.

“Get your bearings”, Pedal soothed her, voice low.

Dani was warm with repressed rage, but she closed her eyes and swallowed, willing herself to keep a cool head.

“I’m okay”, she breathed, “I’m okay. I know where he is.”

She stared into the pilot’s eyes, a wild fire burning behind the wall of ice she had just built. She rested her hands for a second on Laa’ka’s and Pedal’s in a gesture of appreciation before moving again.

The clones took off after her.

“Okay, guys, this is the situation!”, she said over her shoulder. “Raven’s in some sort of underground bunker, pretty small for what I could sense, but big enough to need guards on the move. I can assure there are standard droids, at least two commandos, and a droideka. We’re gonna go with the sneaky approach, which in case you don’t know it means we all stay silent at all moment and I do only two signs: still or move. You do whatever I sign whenever I sign it and you always stay right behind me, copy?”

“Yessir!”

Dani crouched down behind a crumbling wall, and the others joined her.

“There’s a camera. I’m gonna get it smudged with dust, then we can go.”

They nodded, weapons ready as the General sneaked her way outside the camera’s range, taking her time. She had given a wide enough estimated time: six hours was a lot, even for her speciality. If she were alone and all went well, she could probably do it in less than two hours. Having a party and everything going well, about two, maybe three. If something went badly...

Anxiety clawed at her heart and mind, but she pushed it down stubbornly. _You are no fool_ , she scolded herself, _You have already planned ahead. It is fine._

She finally made her way behind the eye-alike camera. She stood still for a second: a soft wind blew, covering the sound of her breathing, despite it being already almost non-existent; and there was nobody around to set eyes on her.

Those were the moments that she inexplicable loved: when she was certain that nobody knew where she was, when she was invisible to everything and everyone, to know that she wouldn’t be found if she didn’t want to. When she was safe.

She took a handful of grey ashes and released them into the wind, letting them rain on the camera. She used a bit of Force to press the dust against the lent and make sure it stuck, then stood up and signalled.

The troopers jumped over their cover and walked swiftly in a half-crouch to the trapdoor in the middle of the void where, judging by the falling walls and ruins around it, there had been a building. Laa’ka went down to a knee, hand gripping at the handle and inexpressive helmet turned to her, awaiting orders. Pedal and Thread had taken positions around him, guns trained to the hatch. Dani approached them slowly, half feeling the ambient under their feet and half taking in the men in front of her: their auras, their white armours painted with black details... Yeah, that was the colour assigned to her... battalion? Company? Two years stuck studying military stuff and her brain had refused any knowledge classified outside of: _Necessary for survival._ Ah, damn. Black. The colour of her people. Yeah, that sounded quite right. Good for night ops. Black ops. Whatever.

Her hand went to rest on her lightsaber, the cool metal and rubber of the handle reassuring her. She took a deep breath, eyes closed, reviewing the underground activity yet again. From this distance, she could feel Raven’s pain. Not in its real intensity, she knew. She forced herself to focus on the energy flowing through the droids, counting seconds, finding patterns.

“I have a path”, she finally said. “Ready.”

Laa’ka’s grip on the handle tightened.

“Last chance to ask questions. Thread?”

“I’ll follow your orders, sir. No hesitation.”

Dani bit her tongue, making a mental note to talk about that later, and turned her head to the youngest clone, a firm nod signalling the start of the mission.

The trapdoor was opened swiftly and Dani dropped inside, as silent as a lonely leaf. Pedal descended the staircase next, followed by Thread and Laa’ka. Pedal was already on his way to plaster himself against the same wall where Dani was cautiously peeking around, eyes open wide but unfocused, so the other clones mimicked them. They stood in silence for thirteen seconds, then she raised three fingers and begun a countdown.

They sneaked their way around the underground base in that way: they would be in the move, then Dani would point at a hiding place. Sometimes they raced there, sometimes they had time to spare. They would wait in silence, watching droids pass by or just waiting for the steps to fade away. Then she would begin a countdown, and they would be on the move again, often just for a corridor or two before hiding again.

Minutes crawled by. The tension was certainly intense, as they were going deeper and deeper into the enemy base. Dani was no fool. She wouldn’t relax just because she was good at hiding. She was aware of the danger.

They ducked inside a small maintenance room, and she slapped her hand over her chest twice.

“We can get there in the next run. We’ll be sprinting. Two guards inside, one on each side of the door, commandos. The interrogator straight ahead and a droideka at one corner of the room. I’ll get the droideka.”

“Dibs on a commando”, Pedal piped up. “I’ll get the one on the right.”

“The one on the left”, said Thread.

“I’ll shoot down the son of a bantha”, Laa’ka growled.

Dani turned her head to the door, checking the situation yet again.

“Watch each other backs”, she said, and rose five fingers.

Dani’s run turned to an almost feral dash as she crushed the door’s panel with her too-strong grip on the Force, activating the safety mechanism and locking the door open. She jumped forwards, using the interrogator droid as a support to change direction and assault the droideka from above before it could take aim. In mid-air, she was faintly aware of Raven’s ragged breathing and the smell of sweat and blood, the feeling of pain and helplessness radiating from the scout. Below her, the droideka was starting to raise its shields, guns activating and starting to point upwards.

Dani smirked wickedly.

Ah, the magic of angles. Of mass-produced droids, make to withstand blaster fire and hold off ground troops. Not people armed with laser sticks who had a thing for dropping from above. And so, when the droideka fired, she was already too close, lightsaber igniting in a knife-sized streak of deep-blue light, and as three shots rang through the room she was already slicing through its circuits like butter.

She switched it off in an impulsive act and turned to take in the room with her eyes. All immediate threats were down, Pedal had a black scorch on his left arm, but he didn’t appear to be in any discomfort.

“You okay?”

“Yeah”, he said simply, and there was no lie in his voice nor his aura.

So Dani dropped to her knees next to Raven, cupped his cheek with a hand and placed a tender kiss to the diagonal strips of hair on his temple. He reacted to it, leaning towards her, and so she kissed him again in a different spot, hand moving to stroke the other side of his head while also searching for head injuries, eyes trained on his shirtless torso, taking notice of several stab wounds before making herself pull away from the scout.

“We have to move. We got less than forty seconds”, she said, switching her lightsaber on and cutting away the cuffs pinning him to a pole. Raven sagged a bit, but Dani and Thread were there to support him. “I can’t heal you right now, okay? But I can make it hurt less.”

She put her other hand on his temple and sent calm and reassurance and a small encouragement to sleep. He dropped his head groggily, but at least she knew it was because it was her doing, not the torture’s.

Dani unzipped her blue furry jacket and slung it over the ARF’s shoulders, and then helped Thread to get Raven on a piggyback ride and helped him to his feet, ushering them towards the exit. She took the lead, running to a different direction where they had came from, but they followed her without question. They turned around a corner and Dani stopped but motioned for them to keep going, staying to make sure that Thread was doing alright before running back to the front and pointing at a lateral corridor.

Three droidekas rolled down the main hall as they held their breath. They weren’t out of the passage and Dani was already motioning for them to keep going. Hide, run, hide. It was quite a simple pattern, and Dani was having in account that now Thread was slower and more bulky. They were moving faster than before: after all, they had already retrieved their objective and it was very likely that the enemy was aware of their incursion. That still wasn’t reason enough to just run through the base. Avoiding confrontations was going to save them time in the long run.

“Shit. Shit, shit shit shit!!!”, Dani hissed suddenly, fists clenching. “They are converging on the entrances. They want to lock us inside.”

“How far are we from the closest exit?”, asked Laa’ka.

“Nearly there, just two turns, but there are already guards there.”

“I’ll be the decoy. I’ll draw their fire while you get out—”

“No!”, Dani hissed, baring her teeth.

“Then, what?”, he hissed back.

“We’ll walk through. I can do it.”

“All five of us?”, Pedal asked, a hint of doubt in his voice.

“Yes”, the General insisted.

Thread was looking a bit lost, his bucket shifting ever so slightly every time someone spoke.

“So we just... attack head on?”

Dani turned to look at him, eyes hardened with determination.

“No engaging. I’ll hide us from their sensors: we just have to not look at them directly and be as silent as possible.”

“Are you sure, sir?”, Thread stressed.

Her face melted into one of understanding and sympathy as she rested a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“I know it sounds crazy, but I have done it before. I wouldn’t propose it if I had the minimal doubt that I can pull it off. But I need you all to trust me and keep your gaze low, alright? Do not look at the droids or they may notice you.”

“Yessir”, Laa’ka and Pedal echoed.

“Yessir”, Thread nodded finally.

Dani nodded back and took a deep breath, slowly standing up. Her face was a blank mask as she abandoned their hiding spot and walked down the corridor.

“Stick close”, Pedal warned the other two conscious clones.

The walking was unnerving Thread. It was a relief to not have to make such an extra effort to keep up with the rest of the group, but still. They were in enemy territory. They were supposed to go slow only if they had the strength in numbers. His fingers twitched for his rifle, but his hands were busy supporting Raven. At his sides, Laa’ka and Pedal walked with their weapons half-lowered. The pilot walked with as much confidence as Dani. The younger clone was visibly trying his best to do so: only a barely there rigidness in his shoulders to give it away.

Dani lowered her head. The clones did too.

The General did not change her pace as they dodged the dozen of droids standing around the staircase to the exit. Thread’s eyes were wide with shock under his helmet, darting around the metal feet in his field of sight. The clankers were not reacting to their presence, some of them even bantering among them:

“I have heard there are four intruders, plus the prisoner.”

“I have heard one of them is a Jedi!”

“Boy, I sure hope they don’t come this way!”

“We got them outnumbered, there’s no way they will get past us!”

Pedal was already opening the hatch carefully, Dani right next to the stairs, ushering Thread to go up. Laa’ka stood right behind him, supporting Raven as Thread got a hold of the rail and started climbing. It was tricky, and Thread vaguely wondered why the General wasn’t just lifting the scout into the air, but he thought that probably making them invisible required quite a lot of focus.

Pedal reached out to take Raven off of him. Laa’ka came out swiftly and Dani followed suit, expression still blank and eyes unfocused. She moved to close the trapdoor, not making a sound at all, and signalled Laa’ka to carry Raven.

Then she signalled: _Run_.

And they did. They ran without a care in the world: no cautiousness, no hesitation; they just sprinted towards the evac zone, panting hard and boots stomping against the ground. Dani had not looked behind even once, she just ran besides Laa’ka, tugging him onwards slightly to make him go faster without making him stumble.

“It’s safe to speak”, Dani breathed once they reached the outskirts of the city, slowing down.

Thread immediately twirled around, scanning the rubble with his rifle at the ready. Pedal ran ahead, towards the half-hidden larty, followed by Laa’ka and Raven. Dani stumbled a little, blinking hard to gather her senses and focus them on her immediate surroundings.

“It’s okay, Thread”, she said between pants, “They are just realising that we aren’t there. We have to leave.”

“Yessir”, he replied automatically, but still walked backwards, gun trained to anything that may move.

Dani sighed deeply before activating her comm.

“General Luna, respond!”, a voice was shouting at the other side.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here, we’re fine”, she answered, still a bit out of breath. “What’s up?”

“’What’s up’? ‘What’s up’?”, her Admiral’s voice took over. “We should have left this system hours ago! But oh; surprise, surprise, I cannot leave without my General!”

Dani grinned at that.

“I can see you grinning from orbit! I hope you have a good explanation for that, or I would be forced to inform the Council that—”

“Wrong executive power, Kasta”, she huffed.

“—I will inform the GAR High Command that—”

“That’s better.”

“—you are not capable of following the chain of command.”

“I need an air-strike. I’m sending you the coordinates”, she deadpanned, punching the commands on her bracelet. “The reason I stayed is that one of my scouts was missing. Turns out he had discovered an enemy bunker and he had been captured. If not for him, the enemy would have undone all the progress the Republic has done here”, she made a pause, waiting for a reaction, but she knew it would take an uncomfortable length of time to get it. She could feel his shock. “Well? Is my airstrike on its way?”

“Dispatching the pilots now”, came the hasty reply.

“Good. Get me someone to ready surgery, my scout might need it”, she added, softer this time.

“I’ll pass the message. Return as quickly as possible. We are behind schedule”, the Admiral said, and cut the transmission.

Dani huffed and kicked an innocent rock just for the sake of it, a tiny act that helped get rid of quite an amount of rage and other negative feelings. One last sad look to the city, and she stepped into the larty. It immediately hummed to life, already taking off.

“Are you alright, sir?”, Laa’ka asked from his spot, kneeling beside Raven and keeping him somewhat sat-up.

“Yeah”, she whispered softly, lowering herself to his other side and making her way behind the unconscious man, pulling him against her chest and holding him tight, her back against the wall of the ship.

Laa’ka stood up and took a hold of one of the hooks, planting one feet next to her hip to keep her steady. Thread saw him do it and did the same at the other side.

“Thanks”, she smiled at them, and let out her breath, reaching out to Raven.

_Hey there._

_Hey._

_You are safe now._

_Am I?_

_Yeah. I said I would come get you, and here I am._

_I feel... wrong._

_I know. I’m sorry. I couldn’t get to you sooner. But we are going home now, okay? With your brothers._

The conversation they were holding was more based on emotions than thoughts, but it was still interrupted when he stirred, shifting weakly in her arms.

“I have you, Raven. It’s okay”, she whispered, tugging the blue jacket so it would cover him more.

He didn’t react to the words, brow furrowing and breath hitching in panic.

So Dani leaned forward and planted a tender kiss to his hair, and pulled back, and planted another in a different spot, and pulled back; all with a practised easiness that Thread watched speechless. Her movements were slow, and she never put too much force into them, lips barely ghosting the skin under his hair. And yet, Raven relaxed under her ministrations, head lolling on her shoulder as she pressed a longer kiss to his temple and his breathing stabilized.

“That... is very inappropriate”, Thread finally said.

Laa’ka nudged him roughly with an elbow, making him yelp in surprise. He was about to yell at him when his eyes crossed Dani’s, and froze instantly. He had never seen such amount of hate concentrated in someone’s eyes, much less would he had thought he would spot it in those brown orbs. He couldn’t even avoid flinching at the emotions that were being projected to him—

And then the fire and the burning were gone, replaced by an echoing sadness and longing.

“Why do you say that?”, she asked, and her voice was soft, her eyes slightly wet as she adjusted Raven, now fast asleep.

“No reason, sir. I apologise for speaking out of turn”, he quickly said.

“No, no, it’s okay, I want to hear your point of view. I’m sorry for the ugly stare, I... I honestly don’t like what you said nor the way you said it, but I want to know the reasoning behind it. If you don’t mind sharing.”

Thread stared her through the bucket, unsure as to what to say. Staying silent was the safest option, and she wasn’t even pushing, she hadn’t turned the question to an explicit order; she was just staring at him, waiting for his decision with those sad eyes...

“The Jedi Code forbids attachment”, he tried awkwardly.

“I’m not a Jedi”, she simply replied.

He didn’t even know why he was taken aback by that, when he already knew. He doubted there was a single clone in the galaxy who didn’t know who and what Dani Luna was, at this point.

“We are your subordinates. It is inappropriate that you show affection towards us”, he tried again, and this time he had more confidence in his argument.

The General blinked at him and hummed softly, composing her reply.

“I understand your concern. You are seeing an unusual behaviour and you think it will be harmful for our professional relationship. Am I correct?”

“Yes, sir”, he admitted.

“Alright. Allow me to tell you that I know my bounds. This is not the first time Raven has been captured and... tortured”, she forced herself to speak the word, to acknowledge it. “The first time I got to him he was panicking. Hard. He was temporary blinded and deafened by chemicals and I could only reach him trough the Force and touch, so I kissed him, just like now. I apologised to him for doing so without his consent, but we talked about it and agreed to do it again if it was necessary. I assure you, Thread, that my kisses are for the solely purpose of comforting, and there is no romantic emotion behind them. If you do not want to be kissed under any circumstance, we can talk about it now. If you wish.”

“Uhm...”, he said, a bit awkwardly. That had been quite an explanation, and it still didn’t totally cover for the unprofessionalism of it, but the effects that the gestures had had on his brother were irrefutable.

Laa’ka nudged him again, this time playfully.

“I accepted the kisses”, he said, and the silly smile on his face could be HEARD.

Dani laughed at that, doing her best to stop so she would not agitate Raven. Thread was turning red under his helmet, absolutely thrown off his rhythm.

“Is this... a very extended practise, sir?”

Her sheepish smile said it all.

“Oh, Force...”, he shook his head.

“Take the kisses, brother. They are worth it.”

“Laa’ka, leave him alone. There is nothing wrong with not wanting physical affection.”

“Sorry.”

“You don’t have to answer now, Thread. There’s no rush at all, think about it for as long as you need. I would like to point out, though, that I am also aware that there are moments when kisses have to be saved for later. I will obviously not start kissing the whole bridge in front of Admiral Kasta.”

“We’ll be docking in T minus two minutes, sir”, Pedal’s voice rang through the speakers.

“Thanks, Pedal”, she spoke up towards the cockpit.

“I... I understand, sir”, Thread nodded slowly.

Dani nodded back. “Thank you for sharing your concerns. I look forward to chatting with you again, when we are off-duty.”

He nodded again, and they stayed silent as Pedal lowered them to the hangar. The doors opened and Dani sat up, holding Raven’s weight as the medics brought a stretcher over and she had to wiggle her way out from under him so they could take him safely. She sat on the floor as her scout was ushered towards the medbay. When she tried to stand up, she found she couldn’t.

“Aw, shit”, she hissed.

“Are you alright, sir?”, Laa’ka asked, offering a hand. Behind him, Dani could see Ian approaching.

“I’m going to pass out”, she croaked.

And, true to her word, she did.

 

She woke up and immediately curled under the blanket, groaning at the light.

“How are you feeling?”, a voice asked, and she wasn’t awake enough to identify it immediately.

“Tired”, she mused, digging around in the Force and her memory to recognize the signature standing beside the bed.

“I’m Shades”, he got ahead of her.

“Oh. Hi”, she said, poking her head out of the sheets and blinking at him, gathering her thoughts. “What time is it?”

“It’s been nine hours. You needed the sleep.”

“How are you?”

“I’m not the one on a med-bunk.”

“Anyways”, she shrugged, her tone mildly-annoyed.

“I have eaten my veggies if that’s what you are asking.”

Dani laughed, still shielding her eyes from the light and rolling on the bed, getting tangled on the sheets.

“I love you”, she sighed.

“Who doesn’t.”

And she exploded with laughter. Shades actually had to move to cover her mouth.

“Okay, okay, I shouldn’t have cracked such a high-calibre joke, please stop laughing, you are bothering the other patients.”

She took a deep breath and held it, finally looking around. The bed next to her was occupied by a shiny-looking trooper with his wrist on a cast, who was staring at her with barely contained laughter, and she had to roll to snort into the pillow at his expression.

“Easy there”, Shades said, patting her back.

She eventually calmed down, putting together her General persona, and sat up.

Her eyes darted around the room, the Force reverberating with them until she found who she was looking for.

“How’s Raven?”

“Several stab wounds, some burns, broken fingers. Not the worst he has had”, the medic listed.

“I see”, she mused, eyelids dropping. “Has he woken up?”

“Not yet. We are giving him a day before considering put him in bacta.”

“Alright. And the others?”

“They passed the check-up and we sent them to rest. They should be on their duties by now.”

“Hm. Is the Admiral angry at me?”

“I wouldn’t say angry, more like very, very, very, very annoyed. Ian is holding him off.”

“Oh, God. Poor guy. I’ll go and release him from this torment...”

She made to swing her legs off the bed, but a hand on her chest stopped her.

“No touching my tits”, she grumbled, repressing a snort.

“That might have worked for you when I was a shinny, but unluckily for you I have learned where to put my hand”, his tone was full of mockery with a touch of defiance, and Dani smiled widely at it. “Now lay down and take a two-hours nap, then you can go.”

She laid back obediently, the smile still plastered on her face.

“Are you going to read me a tale, Shades?”, she cooed.

“Don’t push it, sir. Don’t push it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dani "Ducky" Luna drawn by @trans-clones!!!


	5. The Jedi Temple II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dani meets Anakin and things happen as times passes

Dani sat by a window in an isolated area of the temple. Today it was one of those days when she missed the Moon, the seas, the trees, the birds... Even flies. So she sat, staring at her long-dead phone, thinking about the music and pictures that it contained and that she was starting to forget, all because she couldn’t plug it in to charge up. She sighed deeply. Didn’t really matter. She had printed the most important photo and had it in one of her pants’ pockets, until the day she gathered enough courage to ask for help. It’s not that she didn’t trust Yaddle or the teachers or anybody else to help her, it was just... This feeling that she was better off not doing that. That the secret would keep her safe as long as it was unspoken.

Which was super annoying, because that was the whole reason of travelling to another galaxy.

Still. She missed so many things from Earth. So there she was: skipping classes, brooding and occasionally crying. A tingle on the back of her neck alerted her that somebody was coming from behind, so she dried her cheeks as well as she could, but decided that she would stay were she was rather than avoid whoever was coming. She didn’t really feel like getting up at all.

Soon steps could be heard. They were a little brisk, with sudden stops before continuing. Were they looking for her? Well, she had already decided not to make it more difficult for them, but she wasn’t gonna make it easier, either.

The steps finally arrived at the hallway she was in, faltering for a second before proceeding with cautiousness. Dani frowned at that behaviour, but still did not look away from the window. The person stopped right next to her, and now their presence was so evident that she could not ignore it.

“What do you have there?”, a male voice asked with a curiosity that could have been faked, or could have not.

The girl turned her head, taking in the brown-haired man dressed in black and the scar right next to his eye. And then it happened. Their eyes locked: brown with blue, earth with sky; and they both gasped softly as the Force waved and resonated between them, almost as if it were patting their heads and introducing them.

They remained silent for a long handful of seconds, starring at each other, before Dani decided to speak her thoughts.

“Did we just...? Become best friends...?”, she asked awkwardly.

“I... think so?”, he replied with an incredulous smile.

“Uh, hi! I’m Dani Luna. Nice to meet you”, she said, turning her whole body towards him and offering a hand.

“I’m Anakin Skywalker. Nice to meet you”, he took her hand and he sat down by the window, close but at a respectful distance.

They still looked at each other with a mix of wonder and cluelessness. She fumbled with her phone.

“Uh, this is a phone: a communication device. It also contains music and pictures, but it ran out of battery long ago, so now it’s kinda useless...”

“You don’t have a charger?”, Anakin asked, a hand cupping his chin in thought.

“I do, but back at my planet we had special ports on walls to connect them to the electricity net, and here...”

“...We don’t have any”, he completed. “Can I have a look? I’m pretty good with mechanics and electronics, I could build you a solar charger, maybe even improve the battery.”

“Could you?”, Dani blinked at that, the idea of having her phone back coming up as shocking. She looked down at it. She really, really missed her playlists, but what if Anakin couldn’t do it? What if whatever he did, made the device unsalvageable?

Her insecurity must have filtered into the Force, because Anakin scrunched his nose a bit.

“Hey, I’m really good at that! I bet I can have it done in an afternoon. Buuuuuuut I guess that if I were in your position I would have my doubts about a guy I just met, too. How about I show you some of my works? Then you can decide if you allow me to give it a shot or not.”

Dani’s automatic reaction was plain distrust, pulling herself tighter inside herself. The young man blinked at her, surprised by her reaction.

“Okay, I see we have some trust issues in here...”, he started, doing his best to not push any more buttons. “You don’t have to come with me anywhere, I can bring some stuff here, if that’s alright.”

She swallowed, feeling bad about her reaction but unable to do anything about it.

“I... will feel comfortable as long as we are in a public space”, she said carefully.

“Alright. No problem. Give me ten minutes and I’ll be back with some stuff, alright?”, he nodded, already stepping away.

“Alright”, she nodded back, and sunk her head into her knees when he left.

Guilt was chewing at her for being that distrustful, even with someone who appeared to have a special connection to her, but another part of her mind, older and deeper, told her there was nothing bad with doubt and wariness: doubt led you to thinking, thinking led to noticing and noticing led the early-warnings, if there were any. In fact, it was a good sign that Anakin hadn’t gotten angry at that. If he had, Dani would already be running to the more concurred areas, calling for Yaddle.

She stayed were she was, hand resting over the pocket where she kept her Swiss pocketknife. Just in case. Anakin reappeared with an armful of cables and plaques, a genuine excited smile on his face. He trotted over to her and left the pieces between them.

“Those are some of my projects!”, he said, picking pieces from the pile. “This is an ultra-battery I found left for scrap, but I thought I could restart it and—”

Dani listened to him rant about his ideas and plans, and she couldn’t help but end up smiling at his excitement. He pulled out a tool from under his black tunic and messed with cables and plates and parts until he had built a radio out of spare parts.

“Wow”, she breathed when it flared to life.

Anakin smiled smugly at her reaction, already digging for more pieces.

“That’s nothing. I’m going to start building your solar charger, okay? You don’t need to give me your device yet, I’m just going to start building the charging station, and I will do it so you can attach it to it when you need it. What do you think?”

“I will let you have my phone. You can bet I’m gonna be suffering every second you are taking it apart, but I am trusting you with it.”

“I am honoured”, he said in a half-mocking tone.

Dani snorted at it, glad to have found someone laid-back around here.

“Well, now you know something about me. Do I have enough of your trust to ask about you, or do I need to level up first?”, he asked as he set to work.

She smiled sadly at that, considering his words and her feelings. Anakin glanced at her, but said nothing as the silence stretched.

“I suck at machines”, she finally said. “I’m more into biology.”

“Force, I hated biology classes. Life is so unpredictable...”

“That’s the reason why I like it”, she piped up, her tone slightly more cheerful. “You get to understand how life works, but there is no way you can know what will really happen. You can’t make exact calculous, so you can’t make exact predictions, because at the end life will do whatever it wants to do: no matter maths, no matter logic. I found it... liberating.”

“I see. Everything you just listed is the reason why I trust machines more than people: if you do them right, calculous will tell you exactly what will happen, with no mistake.”

“If YOU do them right”, she pointed out. “If not, whatever happens will be your fault.”

“I take from this that you are bad at math?”

“The worst.”

They both laughed loudly, Dani even turning red and having to dry a couple tears; Anakin pausing on his work so he didn’t mess up.

“Are you from this planet?”, she asked when they calmed down.

“No, I’m from Tatooine, but I have been living here on Coruscant since I was a kid. It was a desert planet, there’s not much to tell about it. What about you? The bold girl that comes from a galaxy far, far away?”

She huffed softly at that, nostalgia and a bit of warmth flashing through her eyes.

“I’m pretty sure I am the first of my people to make contact with intelligent life in outer space. My planet has many names: Earth, Terra, Gaia... Maybe I should choose one and make it official? I feel like I should hold a referendum for that... I am certain I do not know all the names it has.”

“Pick one and go for it, we’ll have a chance to change it if the situation ever rises”, he shrugged. “But why have so many names for your planet?”

“Well, every language has a word for it, I guess.”

He looked up at her, an eyebrow raising.

“Languages? In plural?”, Dani nodded, “How many languages do you have in a single planet?”

“Several thousands, I think.”

Anakin dropped his tool.

“Thousands of languages. In a single planet.”

“Yes?”, she repeated, confusion clear in her expression. “Do you only speak one language per planet?”

“Yes?”, he mimicked her, “Every planet has its language, but if you speak Basic you’ll be understood practically everywhere”, he explained, retrieving his tool.

“I speak three languages from my planet. And Basic.”

“I see”, he hummed.

“What happened to the other languages?”, Dani asked.

“What other languages?”, he glanced at her.

“The diversity of languages that I am certain existed all over all planets before homogenization and/or language imperialism.”

Anakin startled ever so slightly, blinking at her in surprise.

“I... do not know.”

“Is there any record? About the languages and the cultures they were attached to?”, she pressed.

“I... do not know that either. I have never thought about it, to be honest. Maybe it’s in the Archives.”

“I see”, she mused. “It’s sad, to think that all that richness in culture is lost to a single one.”

He hummed, but added nothing else.

“Okay, I’m done here. May I have your device?”

Dani took it on her hand and handed it to him, the cover protecting the battery already removed.

“Thank you”, he sing-sang, and dived into it.

She watched anxiously as he picked through chips and things she didn’t even knew the names of, sparks flying every now and then.

“Don’t fret: I know what I am doing and as far as I can tell it’s going great”, he grumbled, unable to bare her stare for a second more.

“You done yet?”

“No, I’m not! Relax, go take a walk or something or look through the window.”

Dani sighed, noticing her hands trembling, and leaned towards the window.

Coruscant was so ugly and boring to the eyes. Most buildings on the surface were of the same light grey, but that was it. There were no birds. There was no green. She had the suspicion that the lower levels were way more interesting, but she didn’t think it was safe to go alone, despite the obvious superpopulation that lived there.

“What’s your opinion on Coruscant?”, Anakin asked from behind her.

“I hate it. It’s a shit-pit. I haven’t even catch up with politics and I can already smell the corruption from here.”

“Hey, watch that language! There are honest politics who are working to end the war peacefully!”

“But somebody keeps getting in their way, right? Like, the politics that are not working to end the war peacefully. And they must be the majority, if the ones you are talking about haven’t managed to do so yet”, she glanced at him over her shoulder and saw him frowning deeply. “I’d say there’s plenty of rotten people in here.”

“You are very quick to judge, aren’t you?”, he bit back.

“I am very quick to find the source of power and analyse it. Utopias don’t exist. I arrived at the lower levels and was quickly taken to the surface, were everything is shinny and glittering. And you think I won’t KNOW that there are things being hidden from me?”, she pulled back from the window, crossing her arms and legs.

“They took you up here because this is were the Temple is. You would have gotten mugged or worse, if you had stayed there any longer”, he muttered.

“Ah, so it is that kind of dystopia: the elite lives in the surface and everybody else is confined underground, where the sun never shines.”

“It’s not like that!”, he stopped working, staring at her.

“Is it not? Then there is no segregation at all? Didn’t you just say that you brought me here because I would have ran into criminals for sure? Isn’t that discriminatory, Anakin?”

He close his mouth firmly and leaned back slightly, eyes darting around as he thought.

“Coruscant... is not ideal”, he admitted. “But we are working towards a better future”, he nodded, mostly to himself.

Dani sighed.

“It just bothers me that people only want to tell me about the pretty things. I want to know all the ugly, too.”

“Good luck with that. Most people around here would rather die than admit a mistake, or tell a secret.”

“Would you?”

“Would you?”, he turned back.

“I’m not afraid to acknowledge my mistakes. Secrets... it depends. I don’t think my secrets would be of much impact on your society.”

“I guess mines either, if you think about it”, he mused, lost in thought for a moment. “Anyways. I’m done”, he said, and returned the phone.

Dani put the battery’s cover in place and attached the black charger behind it. It almost looked as if she had placed a black protector at the back of the device. Anakin was leaning forward, hands clasped before his chin in anticipation. She angled the phone so the sun would illuminate its back, and pressed the button to turn it on. The screen lazily lighted up.

“Oh my god”, she mused, eyes wide open.

Anakin was grinning as it vibrated and the screen requested a password. Dani entered it, and they waited together as it loaded up. She had thought she would never see those icons again. She swiped her finger over the screen, and Anakin actually whistled in amazement.

“Wow. So that’s why it doesn’t have any buttons!”

“Yeah. I have seen your devices, they look very dumb”, she snickered. “What a waste of material, to be honest. You would also save space if you used tactile screens.”

“You could patent those”, he suddenly said. “You would be revolutionizing the whole’s galaxy technology!”

Dani blinked at him.

“Are you telling me that you guys have laser swords and hyperspace travel and a goo that can heal almost everything, but never thought of making tactile screens?”

“Yes?”

She shook her head in disbelief, and almost hysteric scoff escaping her. She abandoned the subject in favour of scrolling through her apps.

“Want to listen some music?”

“Surprise me”, he smirked, crossing his arms behind his head and leaning against the wall.

Anakin didn’t really know what to expect. He had braced himself for ear-piercing noises, indescribable sounds or voices in an unknown language. Instead, a soft music started playing, creating the most relaxing ambient he had been in months.

“What’s this?”, he asked softly, not wanting to disturb.

“The Animal Crossing Wild World main theme”, she answered, unsuccessfully drying the streams of tears going down her face.

Those words meant nothing to Anakin, but he moved to put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

And Dani cried, sniffing and hiccupping uncontrollably.

“T-Thank you s-sso much”, she managed to say in between gasps. “F-for fixing it...”

And before he could react, she hugged him at the waist. Anakin rose his arms a bit un surprise, but decided not to pull back.

“Don’t mention it”, he said softly, resting a hand on her back. “I’m always glad to tinker with alien tech.”

Dani chuckled at that.

“I guess I am an alien, huh?”

“The alienest alien to ever alien in this galaxy”, he snickered.

Dani pulled back then, her attention back on her phone.

“Let’s take a pic”, she proposed.

She prepared the selfie mode and scooted closer to Anakin. He leaned into the frame, admiring the interface.

“Really. You should patent this.”

“Maybe I will. Now, say ‘cheese’!”

 

“So. You want me to build a handle with these pieces. And put my kyber crystal inside. So I have a lightsaber. So I can learn to fight.”

“Yes”, Mace Windu nodded.

“But why?”

The Jedi Master sighed tiredly.

“It is a part of our culture. Finding your kyber crystal, building the handle, finding your style with your lightsable... It’s all a process of growth and learning. If you follow these steps, you will eventually become a Knight, and later, a Master Jedi.”

Dani nodded thoughtfully.

“Why fighting, though? I thought you were pacifists.”

“We are.”

“Ahà...”, she snorted. “That’s why you go around with very cool and yet very lethal laser sticks, yes?”

“As I have already stated, it is an important part of our culture”, he replied dryly enough that Dani decided to leave it there.

“Alright, sorry. I didn’t mean to disrespect, it’s just... Everything is so weird”, she fidgeted where she stood. “Most things don’t make any sense to me and I just want to understand...”

Windu relaxed a bit at the admission.

“I can empathise with your situation. You find your teachings insufficient?”

“Yes.”

“In what matter?”

“You are only teaching me what you want me to learn”, she stated, crossing her arms to show her annoyance, and continued before he could speak up. “Everybody is telling me what I have to do and how I have to act to be a Jedi, but nobody has asked me if I want to be one! You just outright guessed that I would go along with whatever you wanted of me? I thought I was taken here for sanctuary, not to get indoctrinated!”

Mace was directing the hardest glare Dani had ever witnessed at her, but she did her best to stand her ground.

“Do you not want to be a Jedi?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know enough to make a decision.”

“Do you wish to quit your studies?”

“No.”

“Do you wish to quit your training?”

She pondered that for a moment.

“No. It could be useful in the long run. But that does not mean that I will eventually become a Jedi. Do you still want to teach me?”

It was his turn to ponder.

“I will teach you, and do my best to give you the resources you need to make your decision, with the hope that you will stay with us.”

Dani nodded slowly, stance relaxing.

“Thank you”, she said, loud and clear.

Windu nodded back.

“Now, focus on the parts, and let your kyber guide you.”

“Did I ever tell you that I stole it?”

“Yes, you seem to be quite fond of that story.”

“Never gets old”, she snickered.

 

Dani punched the code to enter Vokara’s lab and trotted inside, stopping to wash her hands before proceeding deeper into the room.

“Hello, Che!”, she piped up.

“Hello, Dani”, she greeted back, not pulling away from her microscope. “Have you come to check on your penicillin?”

“Yes! Has it given any trouble?”, she asked, opening the incubator and peeking inside.

“Growing tax is the expected, and it doesn’t appear to have any negative effects on the tissue samples we exposed it to. It does have an effect on bacteria native to our galaxy, though. Bacta covers for most of our medical necessities, but this fungus might make for a cheaper alternative, and could help to save bacta for the most dire cases”, this time, she did pull away from whatever she was observing to look at her. “Thank you for sharing it with us”, she nodded respectfully.

“You are welcome”, she nodded back with a smile.

Penicillin was one of the few things Dani had packed for her journey, hoping that it would help her fend off diseases in the worst case. Once in the Jedi Temple and having discovered that Che Vokara was a scientist, she had brought her the vials so they could be contained, studied and catalogued, if necessary.

“Oh, I have put together the Basic Anatomy and Introduction to Advanced Anatomy files you asked for. You can log onto my datapad and send it to yours.”

“Thank you! Will do!”, she replied excitedly, walking towards the greenhouse. “I’m going to check on my fruits.”

“Be careful with the Felucian blue flowers!”, Master Che called.

“Yes”, she called back, closing the door behind her.

She trotted along the path, not leaning an inch closer to any flower, no matter the colour or the smell, and arrived at a small space that had been reserved to her. Dani had also brought along some seeds, thinking that she might miss the taste of some fruits. Now, on a patch of soil grew a mandarin tree; already making fruits thanks to a mix of nutrients and growth hormones measured to keep the plant’s homeostasis. She craved for the fruits, but decided to leave the tree alone for some more days. In a near by recipient, there were strawberry, watermelon and apple seeds waiting to be planted. Dani stared at the plant for a second longer with nostalgic eyes before releasing a sad sigh and turning around.

“Everything in order?”, the scientist asked.

“Yeah”, she replied in a hushed tone, getting the files she had gotten for her.

“Can I borrow your hands for a moment?”

“Sure. Give me a sec.”

Dani hastily sent the files and walked over to her.

“What’s up?”

“I’m done with this sample. Can you dispose of it and get me another from the fridge? Upper shelf, right side.”

“No problem.”

She took the crystal rectangle with two fingers and made her way through the lab, towards the biologic hazard bins.

_In case of doubt, apply fire._

The sample was disposed of unceremoniously and without a second thought. Dani peeked briefly as it slipped away down a tube. She hummed in childish amusement. The fridge’s door refused to open, and so found herself pulling at it with increasing force at least four times before it bulged. The samples inside trembled slightly, but nothing seemed shaken enough to fall over.

“The green ones, right?”, she called out.

“Yes, dear!”, Vokara called back.

Dani took out the whole pack to extract the crystal safely, and was careful to put it back in place and don’t smash anything when closing the fridge.

“Here.”

“You have my thanks”, Che nodded with a smile.

Dani leaned on the table next to her, a cheek resting on a fist.

“What are you doing?”, she asked.

“Trying your penicillin with vegetal organisms. This fungus has mitochondria, just like you. I was wondering if it can form some kind of symbiosis with living beings from our galaxy and infuse them with the Force.”

Dani blinked, wide eyed.

“...Sounds like you shouldn’t follow that thread.”

“I understand your concern. I assure you I am doing this out of mere curiosity. No research papers will be made.”

They looked at each other, the girl’s face relaxing.

“If I ever find out that you are lying to me, I will burn down everything I brought with me.”

Che’s mouth dropped slightly open, and she stared at her face, looking for some sign that it was a bluff.

She found none.

“I... understand. It won’t come to that.”

“I hope so”, Dani nodded. “I do not know if beings from my galaxy can combine with beings from yours, but it can be the other way around, in a sort of way.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well”, she shrugged. “My father came and went.”

 

Dani was keeping watch on the kids as they played between classes. It was a duty that had been politely requested, so she had politely accepted. And it wasn’t a bother. It was interesting, seeing Force-sensitive kids interact and play. She wondered quietly how her childhood would have been if she had been able to use the Force... Lots of things exploding. Lots of grey hairs trying to find her. Yeah, her childhood had been fine.

An Abednedo kid ran past the stone bank she was slumped on, pursued by an Aleena little girl, a Besalisk and an Utai boy. They giggled and screamed. The Utai reached for the Abednedo, and the later swatted their hand. Before Dani could react, a small rock was flung into the Utai’s face and he cried out in pain.

“No throwing rocks at each other!”, Dani roared, storming towards the small group.

The whole playground fell silent and all kids gathered up around them.

“I didn’t mean to! It was an accident, I swear it, I swear it!”, the kid squealed, looking distraught.

Dani’s flare of anger dissipated just like that, replaced by slight worry.

“I know. Be more careful from now on, and apologize to your friend”, she said, kneeling besides the downed kid.

The child was curling up on himself, so Dani put a careful hand on his shoulder, encouraging him to uncurl.

“Let me see”, she said softly.

“Hurts...”, he whined, but rolled so he was facing her.

“I promise I will just look, okay? But I need you to take your hands off.”

He took a couple of deep breaths and, making a visible effort, did as he was told. Dani was quick to place her hands at the sides of his forehead so he couldn’t cover it again. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, but her expression was serene through the examination. The rock had cut his skin. It didn’t look deep, but it would probably need to be disinfected, maybe a stitch, two tops...

“Hurts...”, he whined again.

“I know, I know, but you are okay...”, she whispered soothingly, and in a reflex act, leaned forward to plant a kiss near the injury.

She leaned back, just realising what she had done out of the blue.

“Feel any better?”, she tried for the approach her mother would have followed, since it looked like she was already set on acting like her.

“...Yes. It... It doesn’t hurt anymore”, the Utai blinked.

“See? It will be healed up in no time”, she smiled, standing up and offering him a hand.

“No, I mean—“, and he brought a hand to his forehead, fingers poking at the source of the faint trail of blood leaking from it. Dani gasped, reaching to take his hand away. “There is no wound”, the kid said, and she jerked.

“What?”

“There is no wound. Look!”, he said, and leaned so his forehead was right in front of her eyes.

With careful fingers, Dani brushed the source of the blood. There was smooth skin under it.

“Uh”, she mused in confusion.

“Dani knows Force-Healing and she didn’t tell anybody!”, a Mimbanite screeched. “I’m going to tell Master Yoda!”

And they ran off.

“...Am I in trouble?”, she asked to nobody in particular, eyebrow arched.

“Nope, but you just got yourself a looooooooooooot of studying”, the Besalisk gestured.

 

 

Chancellor Sheev Palpatine entered the classroom with slow steps, a polite smile plastered on his face, wrinkles forming around his eyes. Two guards dressed in white and red armour accompanied him.

Dani tensed up from her spot behind the kids, shields raised. The man spoke with the teacher first before turning to the Initiates.

“Ah, you must be the brave Jedi that will protect our future”, he smiled at them.

The kids smiled back at the praise, some of them even bouncing slightly.

“Would you show me what you have learned?”

They immediately scattered: some of them grabbed datapads full of notes, one just started reciting two decades of Coruscant history, others grabbed objects and made them float above their heads.

Dani crossed her arms, and did nothing, staring at the Chancellor.

He glanced at her briefly, but kept his attention on the children.

“And who are you, if I may ask?”, he asked after a while, with that smile, that face that was trying so hard to appear inoffensive and friendly.

_You may not_ , she wanted to say.

“Dani”, she replied dryly.

“Ah, Dani. It is a pleasure to meet you”, he said, offering a hand.

She watched it with distrust and wrinkled her nose ever so slightly, slowly shaking his hand, making just a light squish.

“Thanks”, she said solely, knowing very well that the most appropriate answer would have been _likewise_.

She dropped her hand and blinked at him, not prompting any further interaction and brushing off the awkwardness of the situation.

“And, what are you doing in this class?”, he tried.

“Learning”, she smiled politely.

“Yes, I supposed that”, he nodded with the same fake politeness. “But I was wondering why someone who is clearly older is studying with children.”

“Dani arrived here not long ago”, the teacher intervened, trying to save the situation. “So she is assisting my classes, apart from some extra lessons to get her catch up with the Initiates of her age.”

“Ah, I see. You must be excited to become a Padawan, are you not?”, he asked turning to Dani.

But she wasn’t even there: she had walked over to the members of the Coruscant Guard.

“Cool armour!”, she chirped at them.

“Thanks! I painted it myself.”

“Woah, that’s so cool! I love the wavy shapes, what did you use to make them?”

“I did them by hand.”

“No kidding!”

And Sheev Palpatine could only stare, jaw half open, as he processed that he was being ignored for the first time in years.

“Actually, Dani is already being mentored. She is kind of... a special case”, the teacher tried to salvage the Chancellor’s pride.

“Oh, yes?”, he turned to her, smile reappearing as if he had just decided that what have happened was just a quirk of a rebellious teen.

“Well, she arrived just a few months ago, so she is still learning about the Order. She has also insisted in learning history and politics.”

“Ah, I see she is a person of culture”, he nodded. “Curious that the Jedi have found her so late. What planet is she from, again?”

“I like your hair”, one of the Guards said, and Dani’s eyes shone with anticipation, a hand running through her short dark curls.

“Thanks! I grew it MYSELF!”

The sputter and snorts of the guards under their helmets were perfectly covered by Dani’s loud laugh. The Chancellor looked at them with disdain and the Guards straightened. She could notice the stare on the back of her neck, and considered for a second to keep ignoring the politician, but decided that she didn’t want to get the men in trouble.

“Sorry”, she said in her most naive tone. “Were you talking to me?”

“I was”, that stupid smile wouldn’t fall off.

“Sorry, I tend to space out”, she continued sheepishly.

“No harm done”, he was forced to say. “So, your teacher says you are already being mentored?”

“Yes”, she replied, and just stared into his eyes.

“Dani, dear, would you mind elaborating?”, the teacher said, exasperated.

She looked at her, a tip of her lips curling downwards.

“My apologies, but I do not see why I should share things about myself with somebody who I don’t know.”

The teacher actually startled at that.

“Well, we have to get to know each other in some way, don’t we?”, Palpatine chuckled.

“We do not”, Dani deadpanned. “I do not like you. I do not want to tell you things about me. And that’s it.”

“Dani!”, the teacher scolded her, now looking as if she were about to spontaneously combust.

“I am already biting my tongue, really. I will be leaving now. Have a nice day”, she took a step back, made a respectful half-bow and turned to leave.

“Bye! Hope to see you again!”, she waved cheerfully at the two Guards.

And left without looking back.

“Who mentors her?”, the Chancellor asked, voice low.

The teacher sighed lengthily.

“She is Master Yaddle’s apprentice. I will make sure she is made aware of her behaviour and that it is corrected, sir.”

“Yaddle?”, he echoed, eyes widening a fraction in fear. “Yaddle has taken an apprentice?”

“She has.”

“Oh, well... I hadn’t imagined she would take anybody. What an... unexpected surprise.”

 

“In trouble with the Chancellor, your teacher says you got”, Yaddle hummed, interrupting her meditation.

Dani had been sitting on some cushions in the corner of the room, reading on her datapad.

“He gave me pedo vibes”, she grumbled.

The Jedi Master immediately unfolded from her meditating posture.

“Doing something, you saw him?”, she asked, voice stone-cold.

“...No”, she admitted, “Just this feeling that he can’t be trusted.”

Yaddle diverted her gaze, deep in thought.

“Your words, keep in mind I will.”

“Thanks”, she whispered.

They returned to their respective activities, but Dani couldn’t read anymore, thoughts circling and circling and circling powered by a sense of uselessness.

“Yaddle”, she said softly.

“Hm?”

“Do you...? Do you have a moment? I... need help with something.”

“Of course, Dani”, she nodded, patting the pillow in front of her. The young girl got up and sat there, shifting nervously.

Yaddle waited patiently.

“I came here to look for my father, but I don’t know where to begin my search.”

“I see”, the elder spoke, her ears twitching in attention. “About him, what do you know?”

Dani went quite at that, eyes wetting.

“...Nothing”, she sobbed. “Only that his name is Sol.”

She looked at her sadly, giving her time to calm her hiccups.

“A picture of him, you have?”

The girl nodded, busy pressing her trembling lips together, and slipped a hand into her jean’s pocket to extract a folded photograph. She unfolded it with infinite care, and handed it over to her.

Yaddle froze, eyes widening.

“What...?”, Dani asked, noticing the abnormal behaviour.

The Master lowered the picture.

“A lot to talk about, we have.”

 

 


	6. Under Pressure

There were times when it was too much. When twenty gunships took off and only three came back. When they were sent to support other battalions and the battle would rage on for days, triage tent overflowing with screaming men, if they were lucky. When sleep became a luxury and nobody had seen a shower in weeks.

The men of the 0th would know it was one of those times immediately. It wasn’t often. But it happened.

It was a quick change, easy to notice. Dani would grow more silent. The jokes and teasing would be the first to disappear. Then the laid-back conversations. She would start answering with monosyllables, only to degenerate into hums. Then the silence, just acknowledging what was being said to her and nodding. And then she would vanish.

All of this normally happened in the span of a day, after a major event. Good luck finding your General, who is a Force-user whose speciality is to cloak themselves from senses and sensors. The _Werdla_ , they would call her sometimes.

From then on it was a full-scale operation all around _The Unruly_ , their flagship. Shinnies were woken up, informed of the situation and sent off to search. And so the clones swept the whole ship: double checking every corner, every closet, every room; knowing that they could have Dani right in front of them and they wouldn’t see her. It was taxing, tiring and ultimately pointless, but they still searched. That’s what she would do, if the roles swapped.

_Stop looking for me. Go to sleep_ , a note hung in the mess-hall said. It had been two hours since they started their search, so now they knew which zone she was in.

Ian hung a reply: _Come out. Talk to us._

They left two guards there. Half an hour later, there was another note: _I want to be alone._

_No, you don’t_ , one of the guards hang the last reply, sighing at the thought that she had had to walk past them to hang that piece of flimsi.

Minutes crawled by. More guards came into the mess-hall, in case another note was added. Half of the search-force had been sent off to their usual duties. Commander Ian was zapping through security cameras, burning his retinas with ten brothers more. Pedal was checking the hangar and all transports for the fifth time, aided by the mechanic crew. Laa’ka kept coming in and out of Dani’s quarters, convinced that she was on her bed but they just couldn’t see her. Raven scouted the corridors, cracking comments every now and then in hopes of raising a response. Thread lead two squads of shinnies, telling them about their General’s unique quirk as they swept the training grounds.

Shades stayed in the medbay.

And then, three hours into the search, the door hissed open and close.

The clone turned on his datapad and sent an already written message:

_I got her._

He then turned off the device, not needing to see the replies, and rose his gaze to meet Dani’s. She was pale, eyes red and puffy, cheeks wet and nose irritated. She almost seemed out of it as she swayed slightly on her feet, hands hidden inside the pocket of her violet hoodie.

“Hi”, he greeted softly from his stool.

“Hi”, she sniffed, only moving to attempt to dry her face.

“Want a hug?”, Shades asked with the same soothing tone, arms slightly open.

Dani nodded, covering her face and walking onwards blindly. Shades was there to embrace her as she looped her arms under his and held on tight, hiccupping on his shoulder.

And Shades allowed himself to cry with her, because fuck it. They just held each other until their heads hurt, and then the medic took out a pill for each of them.

Dani chewed hers before swallowing the dust with water.

“You really need to learn to swallow pills”, the medic snorted.

“Oh, shut up”, she shook her head, her lips twitching briefly into a smile. “I’m just really hard to drug, you know?”

Shades smiled at the excuse she had made up and had been using for years now.

“Where were you hiding this time?”, he asked, finishing his water.

“Under a table in the mess-hall.”

The medic sputtered, cackling. Dani smiled with him.

“What?”

“Wait until I tell Ian and the poor guys standing guard!”

“Well, they were at the door. And I did not use it until I decided to come here”, she giggled, staring at her dangling feet from the bed where they were perched.

Silence blanketed them yet again. They knew they were thinking the same, so there wasn’t much to be said except things that they already knew: it’s not your fault, it couldn’t be avoided, we will manage, it will be alright...

“I love you”, Dani said suddenly, eyes still low.

Shades turned his head to look at her.

“I love you all”, she croaked, meeting his eyes as new tears flooded her face.

The medic embraced her again, pulling her close.

“I know, kid”, he sighed, biting his lip. “I love you too.”


	7. The Jedi Temple III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dani quits

“You are today in front of the Jedi High Council to officially become a Padawan, and set your path to become a Knight”, Plo Koon said solemnly.

Dani stood with her hands behind her back, glancing briefly at Yaddle. The Jedi stared back, unmoving.

“Today—”

Dani cleared her throat: “Sorry to interrupt, but there are a few things I am insecure of, and that I would like to discuss before making any compromises”, she said, on her best behaviour.

The Jedi Masters exchanged glances, Yoda looking suspiciously at Yaddle, but she didn’t look back.

“Speak your doubts, you may”, the Grand Master nodded.

“Alright. Thanks. My first doubt is about the history of enmity with the Sith”, she made a pause, waiting for some kind of reaction, but nobody commented. “I have been reading the Archives, mostly records of people and... events. I do not want to participate in this enmity”, she explained, her voice calm and level.

“Against the Dark Side of the Force, our fight is. The Sith, its wielders are. To keep balance, we bow to fight.”

“I understand your reasoning, but I feel like you strongly relate light with goodness and dark with evil. I don’t think darkness equals evil, but I do believe that the Sith think that way. I think you are all set in a balance were you are polar opposites, when you could settle in a balance were you would be the same, more or less, which would probably avoid events like the several genocides that both parties have performed”, she pointed out.

“Do not pretend to be able to right the world, child”, a Jedi she had never spoken with said.

“I am merely sharing my opinion on the matter”, she grumbled back.

“Your opinion is noted”, Mace Windu said. “Anything else?”

“Yes”, she nodded, and this time the darting of her eyes gave her nervousness away. “This one is about the Code.”

The ambient in the room tensed just a note.

“Which part of it?”, Plo Koon asked under a chuckle.

“The attachment one.”

“What about it?”, Ki-Adi-Mundi pressed.

“I don’t agree with it. I have listened to and I understand the reasoning behind it too, about the negative feelings it can generate and the... supposed pull of the Dark Side. But I don’t agree. I think attachment helps us keep caring about people and things. I think that, as a responsible individual, one has to be able to deal with the negative feelings that might come up in a responsible way, just as you have to take responsibility to apologize when you hurt someone.”

“Where are you going with all of this?”, Windu stared at her.

Dani took a deep breath.

“If being a Jedi means that I have to behave according to what I don’t believe in, then I don’t want to stay.”

The entire room startled, except for Yaddle, who gave her a quick encouraging smile.

“We will not change our Code just because you don’t agree with it”, another Jedi snarled, smashing their fist against their chair.

“Then I won’t be staying”, she shrugged.

“You must stay!”, Che Vokara almost shouted.

“Why?”

Nobody answered to that question, exchanging glances, waiting for somebody to take charge.

“Fall to the Dark Side, they think you will”, Yaddle hummed, amused.

“Yeah, I supposed that, but I wanted to see if somebody could come up with a good excuse”, she smirked.

Master and apprentice laughed under their noses under the confused gaze of the Council.

“Anyways”, Dani continued, sobering up. “This is my decision, and I hope that you will respect it. Despite my... rudeness, I don’t hold any grudges against the Jedi Order. I am grateful of the sanctuary and knowledge you all provided, and I hope that we can part in good ways, so we can maintain friendly relationships in the future”, she concluded with a tiny smile.

There was few that could be discussed with that wording. They couldn’t argue against her freedom to leave, and she had just thanked them for helping her, so they couldn’t kick her out quickly, either.

“So I hope too”, the Grand Master finally sighed, and the other members of the Council new they had to go on with that.

“Thank you. I would like to make a final statement, if you don’t mind. Strongly based on my beliefs, so feel free to ignore it if you wish.”

“Go ahead”, Yaddle smiled.

Dani smiled back before standing tall, eyes trained on the Jedi before her:

“You can come back from darkness.”

 

Only Yaddle and Yoda remained on the room. The Grand Master gripped his stick, hesitant to speak his thoughts and unnerved by the other’s mischievous grin.

“Another Dooku, I fear she might become”, he finally said.

“Differences are, though you might not see them yet. Stray further away from us, Dani will not”, she reassured him.

“How so?”

“Master and apprentice, everyone has been calling us. But false this is. Friends, is what we are”, Yaddle nodded proudly to herself. “As long as she has support, away from the Dark Side she will stay.”

 

“I entrust you with the penicillin and my fruits, as long as you promise to send me shipments when I request them”, she told Vokara.

“I understand. I will inform you and ask for permission before performing any kind of experiment on them, and I compromise to respect your decisions.”

Dani nodded deeply. “We have a deal, then.”

 

“So... you are really leaving”, Anakin mused from behind her as she made inventory of her stuff.

“Yeah.”

“Walking away from the Order.”

“Yeah.”

“But... You could achieve so much here! Become a Knight, a Master!”, he seemed at a lost at her decision.

“What’s so good about that?”, she asked, turning around, honestly blinking in curiosity.

“The... The title! Reaching the top level of mastery on the Force and the Jedi arts!”, he gesticulated.

“Oh, I see. But I am not really interested in that”, she said, packing her lightsaber. “I hope you achieve what you want, though”, she added, strapping on her backpack and offering a hand.

Anakin stared at it for a moment before taking it and pulling her into a hug.

“I will miss you.”

Dani giggled softly.

“If everything goes as I plan, we will meet again. Plus, I can just come and visit and stuff. And you have my number, right? We’ll keep in touch”, she nodded enthusiastically.

“Are those plans top secret?”, he asked, raised eyebrow and cocky smile.

“For you, yes”, she teased, weakly hitting his shoulder.

He hit her back, snorting.

“May the Force be with you, Dani.”

“May the Force be with you, Anakin. One thing, though.”

“Yes?”

“About the honest politics you spoke about...”

 

“Ready, you are?”, Yaddle asked, standing at the Temple’s door.

“As ready as I’ll ever be”, Dani sighed, nervousness escaping her shields as she adjusted her backpack.

The Jedi Master took a card out of a pocket and handed it to her.

“Here, enough credits for you to go by, this should be.”

The girl took it with careful fingers, studying it for a moment.

“Thank you. I owe you so much”, she said as she crouched down, words full of emotion.

Yaddle rested a hand on her knee.

“Call every now and then, yes?”

“I will”, she nodded, and they fused in a long hug. “Take care.”

“You too, youngling. Remain loyal to your heart where a Jedi can’t.”

 

Dani walked straight into the GAR’s administration building, quite close to the Senate; sporting a confidence in her steps and a determination in her eyes that made everyone open a path for her. She walked over to the receptionist, who looked up at her expectantly.

“Hello”, Dani smiled warmly, rummaging through her bag, and she settled her lightsaber on the counter. “I was wondering if the GAR would be interested in a Force-user, non-Jedi-affiliated General?”

 

 


	8. CLASSIFIED

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Illegal stuff, because fuck the Republic, y'know

A full platoon took off of _The Unruly_. From the fifty troopers leaving, barely five would come back.

But that was fine. That was planned.

Dani watched the tips of her fingers tremble. It was quite an improvement: the first time she had done this her whole arms shook. Ian nudged her slightly from behind. She startled a bit, neck turning at nearly snapping speed.

“Ai!”, she whined mockingly.

“Sorry, sir. You looked on edge.”

“No, you”, she huffed.

Some of the shinnies snorted quietly. Dani smiled fondly at the reaction. The veteran in charge of the ten-men squad scolded them lightly, exchanging a glance with Dani. The shinnies weren’t aware of the situation. The veterans were, including the pilots.

The doors opened to the frozen planet, and Dani quickly buried her face inside the bucket. The armours they wore were barely decorated: only thin traces of black stripes and other shapes; enough to be recognized by allies but not enough that it would be hard to hide from enemies. Dani was wearing their same gear, the only difference being the ten centimetres the clones had on her. She didn’t even wear her General badge, always pocketed in her pants.

It was still cold as fuck, tho.

“Okie dokie. Let’s go!”, and she just started marching onwards, towards an ominous canyon.

Everybody followed in silence. Dani wasn’t in the mood for speaking, either. She checked her timer regularly, wondering if they would bitch about it if they were two minutes and twenty-seven seconds late. That seemed a better option to her than being the ones doing the waiting, but oh, well. Nothing could be done perfectly every time.

She closed her eyes behind the helmet, checking life-forms and their positions. Some animals lurking inside the ice caverns, didn’t seem too interested in coming out. The men behind her, alert, excited. Electricity on top of the canyon, a handful of life-forms.

“Watch our six”, Dani said as they walked into the gorge.

She heard the men turning around, walking backwards. The wind howled around them, carrying snowflakes and worsening visibility. That was fine. It would do for a good cover.

They walked deeper and deeper into the canyon. They made it past the half without incident, just some flinches due to crumbling ice.

Dani didn’t say anything when Ian announced that communications were being jammed. Did not flinch when Commando Droids shot up from the accumulated snow. She didn’t pull out her lightsaber when Super Battle Droids equipped with jetpacks rained from above, surrounding them.

Her men took defensive positions, already rushing to pull the trigger...

“EVERYBODY HOLD YOUR FIRE!!!”, she shouted, commanding.

The shinnies startled, briefly looking at each other and their squad leaders in confusion.

“You heard the General, weapons down!”, the veterans echoed.

As the clones did, the Commando Droids lowered their guns. One of them took a couple steps closer to the Republic group.

“General Luna?”, it asked.

“Here”, she said, stepping towards it. “And Commander Ian”, she added, gesturing to the clone following her suit. She took off her helmet and waited at the mercy of the chilly wind while the droid scanned her.

“Confirmed ally, codename: Ducky”, it said, and she immediately hid under the bucket again. “Abandon your weapons and follow us.”

“Commander Ian and I can keep ours. It is established in our deal”, Dani insisted.

The droid stared at her for a brief moment, consulting its database.

“That is correct. We may proceed once the troopers are unarmed.”

The General turned to her men.

“Drop your blasters. It’s going to be okay”, she soothed.

“Sir—Are we... are we surrendering?!”, a shiny spoke up.

“Yes”, she nodded, her voice soft and calm.

“We don’t have to do it, sir! We would rather die than letting you be captured!”, another added.

Dani sighed quietly under the helmet.

“I know, I know, and I really appreciate the feeling, but I need you to trust me with this, okay? Drop your weapons, please. I promise you everything will be alright. You have my word.”

And what she was asking went against all the training they had done on Kamino, but an important part of said training was “always follow your superiors orders”, and she...She was a good General. She was being kind and she was respected because she respected them back.

Soon blasters littered the snow, slowly disappearing among it.

“Thank you”, Dani said to them, and turned to the leading droid. “We are ready.”

“This way.”

They were escorted to the exit of the gorge and led through a system of caverns. Dani constantly checked for predators, mindful of the well-being of the group. She could feel the uneasiness of the vast majority of her men, could almost feel their minds racing, planning...

_Don’t do it_ , she sent through the Force, noticing how five troopers had reached an unspoken agreement to fight. _Patience. Trust me with this. Please._

The imminent aggressiveness receded to restlessness. Regardless, they obeyed.

They finally exited the caverns, right on top of the canyon, where a couple of large Separatist transports awaited. The Super Battle Droid stood at a distance, weapons still at the ready. Five persons, all covered from head to toes, walked over to Dani and Ian. They booth lifted their helmets for a moment, and so did the Separatists. They all had vibrant skin tones and clear eyes. Dani caught sight of what may have been the base of a horn, but she couldn’t bet on it.

“Greetings, General Luna, Commander Ian”, the leader, a woman, said politely.

“Naai’na’ra”, Dani greeted back, smile clear in her voice. “How’s it going?”

“I’m doing well”, she replied in the same tone. “I would speak to you about all the progress we have made, but since I already know that you rather see things with your own eyes, I bring you a message from our residents”, she added, digging a device out of her bag.

Dani took it with barely restrained excitement, turning to show it to Ian. She took his wrist and led him to all the men were waiting, and she pressed play.

The first thing to appear was a very, very familiar face. There was something in the clone’s eyes, though, a light that most of them lacked. He was wearing civvie clothes. He looked so, so different from the troops just by that. Behind him the sun shone and illuminated a wide garden. The clone was right in the corridor next to it, adorned by spiral columns and a high ceiling.

“Hello, General! Commander, I hope you are watching this too!”, he said, all smiles. “I’m Metal, I don’t know if you’ll remember me...”. They did. “Naai’na’ra told me you would be meeting soon, so we thought on making like... A thanks video, I guess. The others are still working on a little surprise, but we’ll get to them soon enough, no problem!”

Another clone lunged into the camera’s view, almost shoving Metal off of view.

“Hello! Hope everything’s gong well! I’m Kaboom!”, Dani smiled fondly. She had recognised him by the burn scar right under his mouth, were a beard would never grow again. “So we’ll get a new load of shinnies in, uh? Bring them on!”, he cheered. His cheerfulness dissipated all of a sudden. He looked, ashamed. “I’m... I’m sorry about the stuff I said, before I left. I was—I was scared. You didn’t deserve any of that. I am very sorry. I... I hope you can forgive me.”

Now he looked miserable, and Dani would have hugged him if that weren’t a recording and he weren’t a good bunch of systems away. Metal seemed to have her covered, though, because he slid an arm across his brother’s shoulders and pressed against him.

“The take away is: we are fine. The Seps are keeping their word. We wish you could come visit or we could come over to tell you in person but... We understand how it is. We just hope the war ends soon and we get to see each other again”. There was a beat of silence, and then Metal’s face lightened up again. “Anyways! We might as well show you around while we wait for the surprise”, he said, and turned around to head down the hallway.

They crossed path with several people who greeted them, smiling when they saw the camera and waving at it. They were from species that were hardly seen in Republic territory: some of them had horns, some scales, some feathers, some were plain humans. Metal and Kaboom were in the middle of small talk with a male teen when a voice called them from out of frame.

“The surprise is ready!”, Kaboom said to the camera, and ran ahead.

Metal followed suit, taking several turns until he made it were his brother was waiting right in front of a door.

“Everything ready?”, the cameraman asked.

Kaboom smiled for the camera, nodding, and gave a final smirk before dramatically opening the door and stepping aside.

The room it led too was huge. Perfectly framed, as if meticulously practiced, several hundreds of clones stood or sit: some waving, all smiling in different degrees. They all wore different civil clothes, and they seemed so relaxed...

The camera crept forwards, and as it got closer it was easier to see that the clones at the centre of the frame were holding something.

“For you, sirs!”, a clone dressed with a paint-stained hoodie said when the camera got close enough.

Dani gasped softly.

What they were holding was a painting. At the centre of it was her: half of her body turning invisible, staring at the viewer with a mischievous fire in her eyes as her hands crushed a crown to dust. She was wearing clone armour over a black hoodie, jeans and her favourite boots: the black ones with red flowers sewed onto them. Ian stood right by her side in full armour, his bucket under the arm that wasn’t holding his blaster, which pointed to the sky above. He looked like a proud parent. They were both standing over grass that seemed to wave with the wind that made her curls and clothes flow in a similar way. Far away, in the sky behind them, their flagship hovered.

Over a white cloud, there was written: _To the Unruly, and the ones who will never be held down._

“Thank you, Dani!!!”, hundreds of voices echoed, and the video ended.

Dani sobbed and cried under the helmet. Ian grasped her shoulder and shook her lightly.

“We did it, Dani”, he said, and there was wonder in his voice.

“Yeah”, she hiccupped. “Yeah.”

“Is that... Is that where we are going?”, a shinny asked.

Dani sobered up: “Yes.”

“...What is it?”, he pressed on after some seconds of hesitation.

“It’s sanctuary. For you. For your brothers.”

She could feel their agitation, the uncertainty, their fear of the unknown, the feel of betrayal—

“TRAITOR!!!”, one of them shouted. “You are allied with the Seps!!! Did you really think we would believe this--! This--! This FAKE?! You are not sending us to a happy place, you are sending us to a prisoner camp, and if you think otherwise, you are a FOOL!!!”

“Calm down, please”, she tried, gesturing with a hand. “I know it’s scary, but—”

“The trainers on Kamino were right, it was obvious you would turn on the Republic!”, another added.

Dani flinched at that. Ian stepped over, standing tall.

“SILENCE!”, he roared, and the agitated troopers went still.

The droids were still aiming at them, but none of them was reacting to the commotion.

The veterans of the squads walked over to stand next to their Commander and General.

“Listen, kids”, one of them sighed. “I know all of this it’s hard to process, but I ask you to take a deep breath and reconsider. You are being given a way out of the war, the cleanest you will get: considered MIA, KIA if you are lucky, and shipped out to Separatist territory, where you will be given resources to build your own life.”

“We already have a life!”, somebody shouted.

“Do you? I have had the same training as you. Dani has had it, too, if not in a slightly different manner. Open your eyes, kids. You are indoctrinated. Take this chance: listen to the other side of the story, and make a choice for the first time in your life.”

“You are traitors to the Republic!”, another one shouted.

“The Republic is WRONG!!!”, Dani roared, “It has NO right to prevent systems and planets from leaving it! The Senate are a bunch of imperialistic corrupted BULLIES! And to add insult to injury, what do they go to war with? Clones: who they consider expendable because you have no family to RAGE over your death! But you know what?! They are WRONG!!! Wrong because people care! Wrong because _I_ care! And you can bet your asses that I will do my goddamn best so anyone who can be saved WILL be saved!”

Even the blizzard seemed to hush at that.

Dani was breathing harshly, shoulders going up and down. Her face was red and her teeth bared under the helmet. She was glad they couldn’t see her ire. It wasn’t directed at them, so they didn’t deserve to see it. She stepped back, shaking her head to clear it a bit. She turned to Naai’na’ra and handed her her device.

“Tell Kaboom that of course he is forgiven”, she said lowly.

“I will pass the message. Something else?”

“I’m glad to see that they are happy. I hope to see them again soon, too.”

“Understood”, she nodded. “Now, if you would follow us, gentlemen”, she added, turning to the clones.

One of the front row turned to check on the droids.

“It’s not as if we have much of an option, do we?”

“The droids are here for the sole purpose of ensure my personnel’s safety. Their blasters are not lethal, and they won’t be used as long as there isn’t any disturbance. We will avoid violence and injury at all costs.”

“Hard to believe that the Seps would treat Republic prisoners right...” another one grumbled, fists balling.

Naai’na’ra looked at him sadly. “You are not the Republic prisoners. You are its victims.”

 

The troopers were nudged into the transports. Most of them were wary, but a few had walked in before the others, giving way to the slow flow of marching men. The first of all stopped to nod at her. Dani offered a hand.

“What’s your name?”

“Last, sir”, he said, and they both could feel the irony in the air, but also the defiance it carried.

“I hope everything goes well for you, Last”, she nodded, and pulled him into a quick hug.

He seemed a bit startled at first, but was quick to accept the gesture and return it.

“Likewise, sir.”

“That’s Dani to you, dude”, she snorted, pulling away. “Take care of your brothers”, she patted his back, sending him on his way.

“I will”, he nodded, and disappeared into the ship.

Others didn’t even look at her. She wasn’t going to call them out on that. She understood that they might feel betrayed, even more since those shinnies hadn’t been with them for more than a couple months.

The veterans had gathered up with Ian: the sum of the squad leaders and the pilots that had accompanied them, a total of ten, minus the Commander. Dani walked over to them, not sensing any imminent trouble.

“So”, she begun. “Ready to go?”

“I can’t believe we are really leaving”, Nail, a Sergeant, breathed. “Not that I don’t want to!”, he added quickly. “It’s just... Wow.”

Dani chuckled, suddenly excited by the whole ordeal. They were getting people out. They were REALLY getting people out!

“It’s really happening”, Lax, the veteran that had spoken up for her nodded with wonder.

“How’s our timing?”, Dani asked.

“We should wrap it up as soon as possible, if we are to set up a credible scene before reinforcements arrive”, Ian answered.

“You heard it, then”, she said, turning to the six veterans chosen to leave with the shinnies. “How did that guy say it? _All right, you lazy Shaaks! You don’t want to hold up the General, do you?”,_ she mocked, earning snorts and huffs.

“Not our General anymore...”, Nail purred.

“THAT’S THE SPIRIT!”, Dani shrieked, finger gunning.

And like this, they managed to say their goodbyes among laughter and smiles, if not a little bit of hurry. The Separatist transports took off and cloaked themselves, leaving behind the seven members of the GAR and a good bunch of Commando Droids.

“Awaiting instructions, registered ally, designation: Ducky”, the leading droid beeped.

“We are heading back down to the gorge. Go there and position yourselves in ambush formation.

“Roger roger.”

“Roger roger!”

“Roger roger.”

“Roger roger.”

The droids marched down the caverns and they followed.

“So, how do you wanna do the fake-shot thing? Rock-paper-scissors?”, Dani spoke when they arrived at the bottom of the canyon. “And don’t come out with the I-will-do-it bullshit, we are leaving this to chance.”

“In fact, if we are all shot, it will be more convincing”, a pilot piped up.

“True. But I was referring more to the part of where does the shot goes.”

“I’m shit at lying so I call dibs on a concussion so my alibi is: I don’t remember”, Terco, a squad leader said.

“Granted.”

“Dibs on a shot to the leg! I want to laze around for a couple weeks.”

“I respect that. Ian?”

“Somebody has to be shot at the back, if it’s an ambush, so I guess that’s what I’ll get.”

“Shit man. Alright. I’ll get one to the side, another near the neck”, Dani decided before she could turn back.

“I’ll get a couple to the chest plate.”

“Damn man, you sure?”

“If it’s not believable that we barely survived after that, I don’t know what will.”

“Alright. Alright. Let’s get this over with.”

“Awaiting orders, registered ally, designation: Ducky”, the Commando Droids chanted again.

“All of you, stay still”, she ordered, and they complied.

They slashed and blasted through the metal, asking them every know and then to move or shot back. With practised ease, they set up the scene that the rescue party would find: droids slashed and their parts buried in the snow; blast bolt marks on the walls of the canyon and the tell-tale of footsteps, already disappearing under the snow.

When there were only a couple of Droids left, it was time for the nasty part.

“Ready?”, she asked to her men, and they got in position. “You”, she said, pointing to a droid”, shoot him in the leg.”

There was no hesitation for that order. The trooper cried out and fell to the snow.

“Sorry!”, she called out.

“’M fine...! ‘M fine...”, the other called back, choosing to stay still.

She instructed the droids where they had to shoot. She flinched at every noise of pain, but it couldn’t be any other way. They were programmed to follow Ducky’s orders, and only Ducky’s. She kept on giving precise orders, feeling as if a great burden was being placed on her brain.

“It’s okay, Dani”, Ian soothed her in whispers. “We knew this was part of the mission. We chose to be here.”

She just bobbed her head, not really acknowledging him.

“I’m sorry”, she whispered back.

“I’m not.”

And she ordered the droids to shot at him.

It was quite a relief when she ordered them to shoot at her. As if the laser bolt had took off a chunk of the guilt. As if that made it okay, because she wasn’t unscathed.

“Come closer...!”, she ordered, teeth gritting.

The Commando Droids walked within reach, and Dani pushed herself up to slash through them. They fell to the ground, useless, and so did she.

Success.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Unruly, drawn by @metalwing666 on Tumblr!!!!


	9. Kamino I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arrival and Phase I of Luna's training with the clones

Kamino had been as welcoming as usual: with it’s monsoons and humidity that left Dani completely soaked in five seconds flat. She walked over to what seemed to be her welcoming party. None of them had umbrellas. The guards outside didn’t have anything to protect themselves of the inclement rain, either. She wondered if their armours were enough.

“Welcome to Tipoca City, Dani Luna. Yaddle informed me that you would be coming.”

“Master Shaak Ti”, she nodded back. “We had a half-cooked plan, but it seems that it went well”, she smiled discreetly.

“This is Taun We”, the Jedi gestured to the Kaminoan by her side. “She has overseen the integration of your training to the already ongoing training of the clone troops.”

“Hello!”, the girl chirped, taking a step back to look at her more comfortably. “Sorry if I caused any inconveniences.”

“No harm done, youngling. We cannot refuse our client, after all, and even less when the Chancellor himself insists that you are trained here.”

Yes, Dani was well aware of that. If that was a desperate attempt from Palpatine to gain her trust, he was failing spectacularly.

“And this is Alpha-17. He will eventually train you, once you reach the appropriate stage”, Shaak Ti gestured at the armoured clone at her other side.

“Sir”, she nodded respectfully, making an attempt to straighten herself and holding the gaze she couldn’t see, but could feel. He was judging her, but well, that was probably part of his job.

“We’ll polish you here, kid. You enter a civvie, and will get out a soldier. IF you can keep up.”

A corner of her lips curled upwards.

“Sir, yes, sir. I’ll do my best. Sir.”

She huffed to herself at her clumsy use of military slang, looking downwards and blushing slightly.

Shaak Ti chuckled at that.

“Let’s get inside so you can dry yourself. Then we’ll show you the installations and your bunkroom.”

“I’ll have a room of my own?”, she asked as they stepped inside. She yelped when panels on the wall slipped away and driers turned on, enveloping them in warm currents she wasn’t prepared for. “I thought I would be placed with everybody else.”

“We thought you would rather some privacy”, Taun We answered. “Considering your species sexual dimorphism.”

“Uh”, she hummed, but didn’t object. She had readied herself to share living space with others, but she had to admit having a private place was easing the anxiousness in her, even if she knew she would have to wrestle with herself later to avoid isolation.

They first took her to her room. It was tiny but not claustrophobic, with the bare essentials: a bed, a desk and a chair and a modest closet. There was a door which led to an stark bathroom. All was blindingly white or pitch black, just like the corridors outside. On the desk, there was a datapad.

“That contains your training regime and your scheduled classes”, Alpha-17 said from the door. He had stayed in the hallway, hands behind him in his flawless pose. “You have your first class tomorrow at 0700, with the youngest batch of cadets.”

Anxiety clawed at her brain and Dani scrambled to check if the datapad also contained where the classes where taking place and how to get there. She would surely get lost so she needed to leave her room about fifteen minutes earlier so she could...

She noticed the awkward silence and put the datapad down.

“Sure, uh. I will look at it later”, she mumbled, carefully setting her backpack down on the bed.

Shaak Ti nodded at her decision and stepped outside.

“Tipoca City is a little... tricky to navigate, but once you figure it out you’ll see that it’s quite easy to get from one place to another”, the Jedi commented.

Dani was looking around, really wanting to disagree due to the amount of hanging corridors and the amount of levels that the building... the CITY seemed to have.

“What do I do if I get lost?”, she asked instead.

“Just ask for directions, kid”, Alpha-17 deadpanned.

“What if there’s no one around.”

“There will always be somebody around”, Taun We answered when the clone was pulling in breath to reply.

Dani realised the stupid question.

“Sorry”, she grimaced. “That was my anxiety speaking. Probably. Silly question.”

“Do not trouble yourself about it. Arriving at new places can be unnerving to anybody”, Shaak Ti said, very diplomatically.

They took her to the training rooms and they watched a squad perform an assault exercise. She watched attentively, picturing herself with them in a near future.

“Your weapon training will begin once you have passed your Weapon Safety tests and you have build up some muscle. You are forbidden to hold any kind of blaster until then”, the clone said.

“We are all aware it’s unlikely that I get clone-level muscles, right? I can get muscles but not your muscles”, she pointed out, eyebrow raised.

“We’ll see what we can get with what we have”, he replied.

They passed a group of kids. They stared at each other in awe until the clone that led them called their attention. Alpha-17 caught her eyes and her smile vanished in a flinch.

“Sorry”, she said automatically.

He didn’t reply.

A study zone, the mess hall, some more training rooms, classes, the gym where she had to go, the hangars. She took in everything they showed her, and she did her best to behave professionally. The clones that passed them looked at her with curiosity, and she stared right back, silently poking at them with the Force to pick up differences and know if she crossed paths with them again.

They finally returned to her room.

“I will be keeping your lightsaber from now on”, Shaak Ti said. “Yaddle asked me to take over your Force lessons. I’ll give it back to you then, but since all your other duties do not include swordsmanship, it will remain in my custody.”

“I understand”, Dani nodded slowly, and reached out for her pant’s pocket to pull out the hilt.

The Jedi took it carefully, Taun We leaning slightly to peek at it. Alpha-17 only turned his head minutely.

“Curious design”, Shaak Ti commented.

Dani shrugged. It didn’t have anything special to her. Just a silver piece of metal, padded with a black cushion cut on one side to accommodate her fingers. It was a bit smaller than the other lightsabers she had seen, and she set it into a short blade mostly for safety reasons. It didn’t have any unnecessary decorations, no extra parts. The only thing she had done to personalise it was paint two faint lines at its bottom: one blue and one green. Reminded her of home.

“None of your personal items are to get out of your room”, the Kaminoan informed her gently. “That is for safety”, she clarified quickly. “Our accord estates that you have the right to keep your items, but for the correct function of the installation, we think it best that you keep whatever you posses to yourself.”

“Okay”, she said quietly.

“You will be passing medical checks regularly, but we are not allowed to take your blood, at the Jedi Order request.”

Dani nodded. She already knew that.

“Something else?”

“Yes”, Alpha-17 answered, pulling something out of one of his pouches. “You are not to use the Force during your standard training. This wristband will beep if you do. The instructors have freedom to apply penalizations if it goes off.”

“Any chance it malfunctions or somebody tries to frame me?”, she asked, taking it and studying it. It was pretty discreet, almost like a silver bracelet with a tiny blue square. Hm. Probably a fragment of kyber crystal that would resonate and activate a radiation alarm if she used the Force.

“Very slim, but it can be checked.”

“Do I have to wear it always?”

“You can abstain of it in your room, but wear it if you get out.”

“Understood”, she mused, and tried it on. It wasn’t much of a bother, but she still would rather not have to wear it at all. “Can I give it a try?”

“Yes. We will set the clicker to zero later.”

Dani lowered her hand and did what came most natural to her with the Force. She cloaked herself.

Alpha-17 startled minutely, and Taun We’s eyes became even bigger. Shaak Ti blinked calmly. The wristband beeped: _bee bee bee-beep! Bee bee bee-beep! Bee bee bee-beep!_

“Impressive”, the Jedi hummed.

The girl became visible again, glaring at her wrist.

“How do I turn it off?”

“You don’t. Your instructors do”, the clone replied, pushing a button on his wrist.

“Okay”, she sighed, swallowing down the feeling that she was being treated like a dog.

_You joined the military, you fucking idiot, what the fuck did you expect?_

“Something else?”, she asked instead.

“Not at the moment. If you have any doubt, you have my commlink. Feel free to ask any questions you may have”, Taun We said before excusing herself.

“You are dismissed, Alpha”, Shaak Ti nodded slowly.

“Sir, yes sir”, he saluted and left.

They stared at each other in silence.

“I have heard that you were quite the troublemaker back at the Temple”, she commented carefully.

“You are worried that I will cause trouble”, Dani jumped straight to the point, arms crossed.

“Not so much. But I thought it would be good to remind you that you are not here for sanctuary. You are here with the sole purpose of training, and if it’s stablished that your presence here causes more harm than the potential good you could do, you will be invited to leave”, she made a pause, but Dani said nothing. Shaak Ti sighed. “I hope this does not make our relationship tense. I have nothing personal against you. I merely wanted do make you conscious of your situation.”

Dani blinked at her, letting an upset silence stretch.

“I understand, ma’am”, she answered when the Jedi opened her mouth to say something else.

Shaak Ti stared at her. Oh, she wasn’t dumb. She knew very well that that had been perfectly timed. And Dani’s face and Force-signature were an open book at the moment:

_I will fuck you up in the most subtle of ways if you push my buttons_

The girl smiled. A tiny, innocuous smile. If someone walked over, they would think she was just being polite.

“I’ll see you in our lessons”, the Jedi said.

And retreated.

Dani stared at the door, counting her breaths: in... out.... in... out... in... out...

And she pulled herself tighter, and tighter, and tighter, not only Force-wise; she backed up to the far wall and slid down to the floor, and curled, and curled, and curled.

She broke down.

 

Classes in the morning, solo training in the afternoon, two hours of Force training in the evening. That was her schedule for two whole months. Looks like Kaminoans had no concept of “Sunday”, but she had a couple of hours to relax around midday, and curfew began at 2100. Not that that limited her.

Well, at least she was already used to going to class with kids that barely reached her ribcage. She arrived at the class before hand, carrying a notebook and a pencil. Yeah, Taun We had said to keep her stuff in her room, but they couldn’t argue against taking notes, right? Just in case, she was keeping it hidden under the red shirt she was wearing, over a black undersuit. Her clothes weren’t allowed, either. The teacher was a clone. Who looked older, but that could have been because of his haircut. It was... a weird choice. The kind of hair that most middle aged men had but didn’t choose to have.

“I am CT-3834”, he introduced himself, and Dani’s head spun, having already forgotten the number. “You may address to me as ‘sir’ or ‘instructor’.”

“I am Dani”, she nodded back “I think I was given a number, but I don’t recall it right now...”, she grimaced sheepishly.

The clone seemed to take pity on her. For the moment.

“I will address to you as ‘cadet’, just like the rest of the students. If you don’t find that... acceptable, address your complaints to management”, he said carefully.

“I agree with it”, she replied with her most soothing voice.

“Good”, he smiled, pleased. “You may take a seat at the last row. The other cadets will be here any moment now.”

Dani went to sit to the spot he had gestured to, cheek resting on a fist.

Kids entered in order, and she stared right at them. Some of them stared at her in the same way, some only glanced before looking forwards and sitting stiffly. They all sat in silence. Huh. She herself wasn’t very talkative when she was little, but there wasn’t even chatter.

“Today we’ll be watching a holovid about Coruscant. I do not have to remind you to pay attention”, the instructor said, and just pressed a button.

Dani leaned back on her seat.

“Coruscant, the capital of the Republic! Heart and soul of the ideals that unite countless systems and people of all parts of the Galaxy! YOU will be fighting to defend it! YOU—”

_Ah, shit._

“—so we can extend beyond our borders and include even more planets and systems to our cause! YOU will—”

_Oh, god._

“—to defend our way of life, where everybody is equal—”

_Ah, fuck._

“—against the Separatists, who will inevitably unbalance EVERYTHING the Republic stands for and change our way of life FOREVER! YOU, brave soldiers, will face them and stop them—”

Dani pulled out her notebook, first page, and started scribbling furiously, covering her mouth with her free hand so nobody could see her hysterical expressions. She soon felt the instructor leaning over her shoulder.

“Taking notes?”, he asked, inquiring.

“Yeah”, she croaked, looking up to shoot a quick smile.

“Good”, he nodded, narrowing his eyes to the unknown alphabet, and returned to his seat.

She watched him go, lips pressed in a thin line, and bolted to the notebook’s cover, already having decided on its theme:

_Counterarguments: propaganda on Kamino_

 

Her schedule for the afternoon included going to the gym with some of the youngest batches, since at the moment her training consisted in gaining muscle mass and stamina. She already had a bit of that, after a year learning to use a lightsaber out of the blue, but she wasn’t gonna pretend she had enough. So she took the list of exercises and went to do her part quietly. It was motivating to know that if she was done with it quickly she would have more rest time before having to go to Shaak Ti.

“Have you seen her?”, a cadet asked quietly to the one next to him.

“The reg-born?”, he asked just as quietly as they run in formation. “What about her?”

“I dunno, it’s kinda weird having her around, isn’t it?”

“She does behave weird”, he hummed.

“And isn’t she too old to be starting training?”, a cadet from in front of them piped up.

“Maybe she wasn’t gonna be a soldier.”

“So why is she here now?”, asked one from behind.

They stared at each other for a second.

“You ask her”, they said at the same moment.

“If you have energy spare for talking, them maybe I should add a couple more laps for you, cadets!”, the instructor called.

“Sir, sorry sir!”

Dani was lifting light weights, watching the kids to entertain herself, loosing count of the repetitions she had made. She watched them and wondered: about their births, their first months, their first years... How old were they? They looked near thirteen. Were they five?

A cadet met her eyes, and they stared at each other for a moment.

Dani stuck out her tongue and blinked, as to transmit that she wasn’t mocking him, only attempting interaction. The cadet’s eyes widened and his head jerked up a bit: he took a too-wide step and nearly fell on the kid in front of him.

“Auch!”

“Sorry!”

“Watch your steps, CT-6783!”

“Yes, sir!”

The kid got back to rhythm as Dani winced. Ufff. So much for trying to make friends... Eventually he looked at her again and she gestured as best she could that she was sorry. Must have worked, because he gave her a small smile. Their eyes met again a few times, but Dani limited herself to smile discreetly as to not distract him again. Some other cadets noticed their looks and locked eyes with her, too. She gave them the same treatment, plus a little wave when the instructor supervising them had his back to her. She completed her set of exercises before the cadets they were done with their drills, so she left, looking over her shoulder and meeting the kids’ eyes.

The instructor cleared their throat loudly: provoking the clones to straighten up and Dani to walk faster.

 

“We are going to start with meditation.”

Dani had been fearing she would say that. Either way, she sighed and sat down. Shaak Ti went off to explain the importance of having a clear mind and how meditation could help with the management of emotions and improve the connection with the Force and blah blah blah... She already knew how to do that so she nodded along and spaced out, waiting patiently for an opportunity to speak up. That opportunity didn’t reveal itself until two hours later, when the Jedi Master decided they had had enough meditation for the day.

“May I ask what set of skills do you intend to teach me, Master Ti?”, she went with the polite approach. The Togruta seemed pleasingly surprised by that, but well, that was kind of the point of Dani’s attitude towards authoritative figures: to present herself as a rebel, only to behave at the next interaction, giving the impression that the person she was speaking to had somehow gained her respect. And most of them made LOTS of little concessions to keep it that way.

“Yaddle and your teachers back at the Temple have filled me in in your progress in studies and skills. For what I have read, you are quite diligent at gathering information, sufficient in manipulation of objects with the Force, lacking in duelling skills, and incredibly proficient in cloaking.”

She rose a hand, asking for permission to speak. The Jedi nodded, visibly approving of the gesture.

“Have they mentioned that the things I try to lift with the Force explode? Because I think it’s an important fact to keep in mind”, she huffed nervously.

“They have. We will work on that, just like we will work on your duelling...”

Dani was raising her hand again.

“Yes?”

“Then, if I am correct, you intend to teach me just like if I still where in the Jedi Temple.”

Shaak Ti stroke one of her montrals slowly, meditating about it.

“Indeed: the GAR and the Jedi Order want to be sure that you will be able to have full control of the powers that the Force confers you, so yes: I will teach you control as it would have been done back at the Temple, with the only difference that you will only have me as a teacher, instead of the different specialists that would have trained you, should you have chosen to become a Jedi yourself”, she explained.

“I was hoping for some... innovation”, she tried.

The Master eyed her curiously.

“Do tell me”, she encouraged the younger to speak, honestly intrigued.

“I understand that the Jedi train in a very specific set of skills: lightsaber wielding, Force-lifting... I would like to learn to use the Force for things that I don’t think the Jedi had tried doing, and I would like to know if you would be willing to orient me on that or if I’ll be on my own once I set to it.”

“Well”, she blinked, “that would depend on what you intend to do with it”, she said suggestively.

“Nothing destructive”, she was quick to reassure her. _For now..._ “I am interested in enhancing my mobility and improving my cloaking skill. I don’t know if the High Command of the GAR has contacted you, but—”

“You are aimed to forming a Paramilitary unit”, she nodded, and a lot of things were implied in that: assassin, thief, murderer, terrorist, dog of the Chancellor...

Dani was aware of it. She didn’t like it, but it was the best option to enter the GAR on her own terms, if not the ideal. Her skills were good to act as the Chancellor’s personal assassin, disguised as General of a “secret” unit.

But that’s okay. She had plans.

“Yes. I do not mean to disdain duelling and meditation, but at least I wanted to make you know that I intend on pursuing other uses of the Force”, she continued calmly.

“I understand”, Shaak Ti nodded. “I will do my best to help guide you, but I may not be of great help in some cases...”

“It’s okay. I’m very thankful that you are willing to help me with my projects”, Luna gave her a small smile.

The Jedi returned the gesture. “You are welcome, Dani Luna. I’ll see you tomorrow at the same time”, she waved her off.

“Good evening, Shaak Ti”, she nodded slowly, and left.

Dani’s mind was a shrieking cacophony chanting: _FORCE PAR-KOUR! FORCE PAR-KOUR! FORCE PAR-KOUR!_

 

She arrived at the mess hall before most of the people did, and hurried up to pick up her dinner before she had to wait in line. The almost endless rows of tables looked menacing: threatening her with solitude in a sea of people. Luna kicked herself mentally. She had already foreseen that the first days, if not weeks, would be lonely until she managed to connect with somebody. After all, she was an stranger among the clones: not only a different face, but also a different body set and privileges that they didn’t have. She would be wary, too, if someone like that disturbed her everyday life.

So she sat down, focused on soothing her hunger and leaving quickly to get some rest, maybe call Yaddle and tell her about her day...

Kids flooded the mess hall, chatting and gesturing as they went to collect their food. Dani watched them out of anything else to do. She wasn’t aiming for it, but she made eye-contact with a cadet and he waved at her. She waved back, reaching out with the Force, and recognized him as the one she had stuck her tongue out to. She kept on eating, and was almost done and ready to go when a plate was dropped on the table opposite of her and suddenly she was surrounded by children: most of them looking up at her with curious eyes, some shaking their heads at their partners behaviour an setting to eat with unnatural seriousness.

“Hi”, greeted the Tongue-cadet, and seemed to suddenly loose all his boldness, making himself small on his seat.

“Hi”, she smiled tenderly. “My name is Dani. Who are you?”

“Uh, I’m the cadet from the training room, uhm, you were there and you stuck your tongue out to me...?”, he explained, nervously scratching the back of his head.

“Yes, I remember you. I was referring if you have a name”, she clarified, taking a bite off her unknown fruit.

The cadet blinked at her, flinching minutely at his dumb mistake; but there was no trace of judgement or disappointment in the reg-born’s expression, she was just there, waiting for his answer.

“I am CT-6783”, he answered.

Dani’s expression twisted in consideration, her head slightly tilted to a side.

“No nickname yet, then?”

“I... still haven’t found anything that suits me”, he squirmed a bit, doing his best to no appear uncomfortable.

“That’s okay”, she was quick to soothe him, “It’s wise of you to take your time. It’s very nice to meet you, CT-6783”, she smiled at him.

He blushed a bit, the red of his cheeks accentuated by his blue clothes. “L-Likewise.”

“I do have a name!”, the cadet sitting on her right piped up.

“Oh, yeah?”, Dani smiled at him, “What is it?”

“I am Wing!”, he smiled daringly.

“Wow, that’s a cool name! Nice to meet you!”, she smiled back, offering him a hand. He stared at it for a second before taking it and looking up at her as they shook hands.

Slowly, older cadets started to walk in the mess hall, some sparing discreet glances, some staring from the waiting line, but Dani couldn’t bring herself to worry about the attention, too busy listening to the kid’s names and memorizing their hairstyles and quirks, their voices and Force-signatures. They made weak attempts at conversation and she encouraged them the speak about what they wanted: mostly about what division they wanted to end up on, which was their version of what they wanted to be when they grew up. So Dani listened and asked questions here and there, asking their opinions on little things, like: what do you think is cooler; ARC or ARF?, what do you think is easier to use; rifle or blaster?, does anything they serve here taste like what it’s supposed to taste?

Some of them, the ones that were sitting further away, got up from their seats, and pulled at her shirt to introduce themselves and, basically, have her attention even if it was for just a couple of seconds. She shook all their hands, and with great effort, managed not to pull them in hugs. It was still too soon to display that level of affection.

Time flew, and one of the quietest cadets called out:

“Guys! Lights out in ten!”

They all got up, scrambling to put away their trays. Dani blinked at the organized chaos.

“Sorry”, CT-6783 said with a guilty grimace. “We have to be back at our barracks or we will be in trouble. See you again tomorrow?”

“Sure”, she nodded, also picking up her tray. “Good night!”, she called out.

Most of the group jerked at the call, turning to her. Some turned around and left, not really saying anything; some blinked dumbly and then left, and a few said ‘good night’ back.

Dani put away her tray and left, not sparing a glance at anyone else, taking a smile back with her.

 

Loyalty Class was the worst.

The notebook with counterarguments grew fuller every day, as did her indignation. She entered the classroom every morning cloaked with cold indifference and politeness, and left with cold anger. The physical workout helped vent off a bit, gave her more time to reflect about the propaganda and to take her mind to other things to de-stress. Seeing the cadets running around and taking every chance they had to stick their tongues out at her and make funny faced brightened her day like nothing could: the Tongue Batch, that was their unofficial name, and they loved it when they stole a laugh from her.

Dani would get her workout done and run off to Shaak Ti: one hour of her training, one hour of whatever she wanted to try out. Mostly Force-parkour. Three out of four times it was Force-parkour. Three out of four times she walked out of Force training bruised.

Then she would have dinner at the mess with the kids, finish quickly and go off to an unused training room to lay around and talk until Clock warned them about the lights-out.

“Pilots are the best!”

“No! ARCs are the best!”

“NO! Commanders are the best!”

“Kiiiiiiiiids...”, Dani sighed, laying on the floor in the middle of a sea of blue-clad bodies. “No matter what you become: you will all be cool.”

A moment of silence.

“Well, yeah, but pilots are cooler.”

“No!”

She laughed and rolled on her stomach, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to stop them, but calm because she knew they wouldn’t get physical. They never did. CT-6780 rolled to hug her waist, curling up against her. She glanced at him and he looked back, exchanging a smile:

_I want to be near you_

_I accept that_

CT-6783 was laying by her head, now tilting his head backwards to look at her. His brothers were chattering all around, some playing to jump over the ones that were laying down. Every now and then there was a pained yelp, and Dani would look up and warn the jumper, who quickly apologized and went on. Three yelps caused by the same jumper and they were grounded. Anyways, 83 was staring in a I-want-to-ask-something-but-I-don’t-know-if-it’s-appropriate fashion, so she just blinked at him until he spoke up.

“Hey, Dani.”

“Yes.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You already did”, she grinned.

It took a couple seconds, but he realised it and huffed.

“Okay, another.”

“Okay.”

There he was again: hesitating.

“What’s it like, to have parents?”

The room fell silent as everybody turned to them. Dani’s face was frozen in shock, eyes lost in memories.

“Sorry!”, he said quickly. “Sorry, it’s a weird think to ask, I shouldn’t have--”

“It’s okay”, she interrupted him, sitting up. “It’s just... You caught me off guard. It’s okay. It’s completely understandable that you would ask me that question. Just... let me think about the answer for a moment, yeah?”, she asked with a meekly smile, and she spaced out.

The cadets around her also sat up, as still as statues, waiting for the answer all of them carved to hear. Just as some of them started to whisper, Luna straightened and took a deep breath.

“What’s it like to have parents”, she started, fingers playing with the fabric of her black pants. “It depends on what kind of parents you get. If you are lucky, you’ll get loving parents: they’ll love you, and give you affection, and teach you boundaries and kindness and help you out when you are in trouble and don’t know what do to. They will help you set your own life, and once you have moved away, you’ll still visit each other and speak frequently”, she spoke softly. “The other extreme would be... get parents who aren’t ready to be parents, or who didn’t really know what it meant to have kids. People who don’t know or care to emotionally support their own children, or even abusive parents that beat their kids. You must understand that I am telling you about an ideal and the opposite of it, but parenting is... complicated. Nobody is perfect, and everybody makes different choices, even in similar situations. I like to think that everybody does their best.”

The cadets were all looking at her with big eyes, chins tilted downwards, expressions almost fearful.

“How... how were your parents?”, Wing asked, voice small.

Dani looked at him slowly, giving him a melancholic smile.

“My parents were good. They loved me and always let me know. Dad played a lot with me. Mom wasn’t there as much as him because she worked, but we went out once a week and they took me to a new town, or the mountains, or the sea... If it was raining, we would stay home and watch movies... They loved me, and I loved them”, she nodded to herself.

“Why aren’t you with them?”, 83 asked.

When she looked at him, Dani was crying. The cadets were suddenly on high alert, some even standing up, looking around and subconsciously standing guard while some crawled closer to her, resting their hands on her back and shoulders and looking up at her with worried eyes.

“Mom died”, she said, voice broken. “Dad went away long before that.”

83 stood up and walked to her, falling to his knees and hugging her. Luna hugged him back, taking a moment to softly grasp all hands currently touching her and spreading an arm to make contact with the kids that hadn’t managed to get a spot.

“I’m sorry”, 83 mused.

“You didn’t do anything wrong”, she replied, softly stroking his head.

“Why did your dad go?”, Clock asked, frowning.

Dani gulped and huffed a bitter laugh.

“He... He had left his brothers long ago. And he was worried about them. So he went to meet them and tell them about my mother’s planet. He was supposed to come back with them, but then my mother died, so I decided to come look for him and tell him.”

“Do you know where he is?”, 80 asked, perking up a little.

“I do not. It’s a big galaxy, but I hope I can eventually find out where he is.”

 

“How did it went for you?”, 83 asked her as she walked out of Loyalty’s final test.

“My integrity is dusted and I feel like breaking something, but at least that’s out of the way”, she replied bitterly, knowing full well that the kids didn’t know about her personal opinion on the lessons imparted. “And you?”

He had raised a brow at her answer, but it quickly changed when she asked back.

“I think I will get top score!”

“Hey! Congrats!”, she smiled, and rose a palm to high-five him.

He completed the gesture, almost bouncing at her prise. The few cadets around them saw them and quickly went to receive their high-fives. Dani handed them over with a smile, masking how heart-breaking it was that those kids were so praise-starved.

“I gotta go to take my Weapons Safety test. I’ll see you at training or dinner, alright?”

“Sure!”, they answered.

Dani waved them goodbye and power-walked her way through the white corridors, careful to not get in anyone’s way. Everybody on Kamino had gotten used to her presence by know. She still attracted some gazes and rose whispers when she passed by, but there was no bad intents in them, that she knew. If she passed the tests of Basic Training, she would leave behind the physic preparation with the youngest cadets to join older batches in shooting and combat training. That would be Phase II of her training, and if she passed it, that would give her trooper status. Phase III was gonna be a lot of jumping from Pilot training, to Medic training, to ARC training, ARF training, Gunner training, and Special Ops training. It would certainly be hell, but it would be great preparation and make her aware of her future troops’ train of thoughts. And finally, Phase IV: Command training. The GAR High Command had decided that if she could pass all of that, she would immediately be promoted to General. Dani was no fool: she knew the conditions were that severe because most of the tribunal expected her to fail. Jokes on them: she was going to find a way to walk around the obstacles, no matter physical or legislatives.

She entered the test with confident steps and followed the instructor’s order: she sat at her designated table and dismounted and mounted the blaster in front of her as she was chronometered. She settled the mounted blaster on the table with the safety on and looked up at the evaluator.

“You pass”, he nodded, and she smiled brightly at him.

“Thanks”, she nodded, and left, confidence almost physically building in her chest and mind.

_I can do this. I can do this. I’m going to do this. I will do this!_

 

Last day of her solo workout, last day of sneaking funny-faces with the Tongue Batch. She had told them that her schedule was changing and they wouldn’t see each other as often, and it showed: the kids went through their usual drills, but they spared more glances at Dani, eyes longing, as if they were trying to capture her in their minds. Luna watched them too, smiling softly in encouragement when she met their eyes:

_It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here. Nothing is wrong._

She was done with her workout early, as usual, and was gathering her things to leave when the cadet’s instructor looked around, apparently distraught.

“Luna!”, he called when he saw her.

She stopped on her tracks and turned to him, blinking in surprise.

“Yes, sir?”

He trotted up to her. “I forgot I have to submit a report in less than an hour. Could you supervise the cadet’s drills while I’m out? It will be half an hour, tops.”

Technically, he had a higher rank than her, so he could just order her to watch the kids, but his tone and body language indicated nervousness. Maybe it would be a real mess up if he didn’t send that report. Maybe he was so stressed about it that he didn’t realise he had just asked for a favour.

“Sure, sir. No problem”, she nodded, dropping her bag with a water bottle and her tank top.

“Thanks”, he nodded back.

The second he turned around Dani was grinning at the cadets in anticipation, some of them grinning back, some nudging their reckless batchmates and keeping an eye out in case the instructor turned around and saw them. But the man left the room without looking back.

She picked up the black top and held it high.

“Who wants to play Steal the Flingsock?”

The two teams were made with the efficiency and discipline Dani had learned to expect from clones of all ages. They assigned themselves animals (because Dani refused to assign them numbers) and stood in line ten meters away from Dani, the teams being 20 meters apart.

“Readyyyyyyyyyyy?”, she called out.

“YEAAAAAAAAAH”, the kids cheered.

“Loth cats!”

A kid from each team ran to her, watching their opponent as they raced to take Dani’s shirt from her outstretched hand. They reached her almost at the same time and stopped dead on their tracks, waiting for the other to take it first. Their teammates cheered from the lines. The girl just watched, amused. The kid on her right finally snatched the cloth and turned away as his opponent reacted and set to chase him. The cheers grew louder as the two kids fought for the point, but the cadet didn’t manage to catch his opponent before he reached his team.

“Point for them!”, Dani declared, and the child that had taken the shirt trotted up to her to return it. “Well done, Clock. You did great too, Wrench.”

A few more rounds were played, when CT-6783 spoke to the cadet next to him and got out of line to walk beside Dani.

“What’s the matter?”, she asked him with worried eyes.

“Nothing bad”, he was quick to reassure her. “I... wanted to ask you something.”

“Go ahead. Jaigs!”

The game went on, but Dani was looking at him.

“What did the instructor call you?”

She tilted her head a bit, not understanding what did he mean, but it clicked quickly.

“Luna?”

“Yeah. What’s that?”

“My name.”

He seemed confused.

“But I thought your name was Dani?”

“Yeah: Dani Luna. Dani is a name I chose for myself; while Luna is a name that I inherited from my mother.”

“Oh!”, he blinked rapidly, processing. “I didn’t know you could have more than one name.”

“You can”, she nodded, and turned to thank the cadet returning her shirt. “Back at my planet there are people who have three, four, or even eight names. Maybe there’s people who have even more.”

“Does your name mean something? Like ours are objects, or quirks?”

“Dani does have a meaning, but I did not choose it because of it. I just liked the sound of it. Luna means moon, and it’s also the name of the only natural satellite that my planet has.”

“You have never talked about your planet”, he commented after a beat of silence.

“Haven’t I? I guess it didn’t come out during conversation”, she said thoughtfully. "But well, that has easy fix”, she winked.


	10. Mission, starring the 212th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 0th in action

“The 212th will take care of the frontal charge. We intend for the 0th to infiltrate the city walls while the Separatists are distracted and cripple their forces; maybe even take their leader as hostage so we can establish a negotiation”, Obi-Wan explained calmly.

Dani pulled up the schematics of the rampart and the city within, studying them with her brow furrowed.

“Any extra info? Tunnels, weak spots on the walls?”

“Not that my men have found, General Luna”, Commander Cody replied.

“We were counting on your expertise for this demeanour”, the Jedi added.

“Hm. What’s the status on the aerial zone?”

“There hasn’t been any enemy ship airborne in the last three planetary rotations. We cannot attack them due to their shield, so the aerial traffic is minimal”, Cody provided.

Dani’s expression morphed into a wild grin and she turned her head to Ian at neck-breaking speed, biting at her lip in excitement.

“It’s a good chance to try...!”, she almost pleaded, looking up to him from where she was sitting next to him. She didn’t get why everybody seemed to want to go through the strategic meetings standing.

Commander Ian looked down at her, considering.

“It looks like it is, sir”, he nodded.

Dani turned to the holograms.

“Alright! We’re going to glide there! Any objections?”, she asked cheerfully, crossing her arms and leaning on the seat with a satisfied smile on her face.

The two men looked at each other, vaguely startled.

“Jetpacks may malfunction when approaching the shield barrier...”, Obi-Wan began.

Dani laughed briefly.

“Oh, no no no! I said GLIDE. Not FLY.”

There was a moment of silence as her grin grew wider, but she was already meticulously taking stock of the intel she would have to gather and setting up back-up plans.

Kenobi paused the scratching of his beard.

“Do you take constructive criticism?”, he mused.

“Not from you.”

 

“Approaching the drop zone”, Pedal warned from the cockpit. The laterals of the gunship started shifting aside.

“Aren’t you excited?!”, Dani screeched over the wind.

“I’m not!”, Laa’ka yelled back. “But I’m here to follow you, so..!”

“I am”, Ian piped up through the comm. He was in another Iarty, to guide a different squad.

Dani grinned under her breathing mask and googles. For this mission, she had discarded the standard armour that she usually wore over hoodies or button-up shirts in favour of a sneakier approach. That meant leaving the helmet behind.

“It’s going to be fine, guys! We practiced a lot!”, she remembered them playfully.

“Drop zone reached! MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!”

And so Dani swallowed her own doubts and did the job of a General: to jump first. She couldn’t look at anybody’s face is she chickened out of a plan proposed by herself. A strange feeling almost overwhelmed her as she handed herself to gravity: uncertainty and loneliness flooding her soul and whole being...

And then she felt them: the men jumping after her, their trust, confidence and excitement drowning the restlessness and fear in the Force.

She wasn’t flying solo anymore.

The world became sharp and clear: her eyes fixed to the great wall far off in front of them.

“Let’s show birds how’s it done, guys!”, she howled, and spread her arms and legs, unfolding the membranes of the gliding suit.

Cheers followed her cry and Dani heard the sound of the wind hitting other membranes around her. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Laa’ka close by, and dared to manoeuvre to glide next to him.

“How’s it going, Laa’ka?”, she asked cheerfully.

“Holding up, sir! You?”, he glanced briefly at her, but his head snapped forwards almost immediately.

“I wanted to ask you something!”

“If it’s about an hypothetical fear of heights, it’s a bit late for that!”

Dani laughed. “No! What I want to ask, is: do you want to be an ARC? Or an ARF?”

His head snapped to the side.

“What?!”, he blurted before looking ahead again.

“Do you want to be one of my ARCs or ARFs?!”, she repeated, amused.

He looked at her again for a millisecond.

“Are you really asking me this now?!”, he screeched as they watched the city approach.

“Yeah! But you don’t have to answer now! Think about it!”

“I don’t need to! Of course that I want to be an ARC!”

“Cool!”, she smiled widely. “Once we get back to the ship, I’ll fill the petition!”

“Thank you, sir! I won’t let you down!”

“Thank me once you are an ARC, dude! Good luck, and see you on the ground!”, she manoeuvred to put distance between them, the wall now only a scarce minute away of gliding. “Scatter!”, she commanded.

The flock divided itself in three: Dani guided the left group in a wide curve, just like the right group did, commanded by Feather, the Aerial Operation’s Specialist leader; to flank the city, while Ian kept going straight.

The guards on the wall took notice of them as they approached. Every trooper had freedom of movement as long as they maintained minimal formation to avoid collision with allies: some choose evasive manoeuvres, some betted on speed. Dani went for a mix: she dodged two blaster bolts with quick flops before retracting the membranes and tackling a cannon gunner at high speed. They rolled and collided with the inner safety bar, Dani managing to use the other’s body to cushion the abrupt stop. She was quick to roll on the floor and get to a crouch. Her eyes met two guards, guns aiming at her, but they were tackled and thrown to the wall before they could shoot. In their places, two troopers hurried to get on their feet, as some more glided over them and to the city’s roofs. Dani stood up, watching the landscape and the higher light-brown building at the centre of the urbanization with her hands on her hips.

“This is going to be so Assassin’s Creed”, she grinned.

As usual, there was no one around to get the reference. On top of that, the troopers were already way ahead of her. She sighed in minute nostalgia before giving way to childish excitement.

And she leapt.

She ran through the roofs, and could see her men around her: the walls were almost clean thanks to the element of surprise and the members of the 0th proceeded to secure three buildings to stablish emergency bases or converge at the primary objective. Appointed snipers were taking positions on the wall with two escorts each other.

“Kenobi! We’re in, the walls are almost cleared!”, she called into her wrist comm.

“Glad to hear that, Luna! Can you do something about the energy shield?”

She switched the channel.

“Raven?”

“I got it in my sights, sir, just waiting for a bit of backup before swooping in.”

“Understood. Inform General Kenobi when you are ready.”

“Copy that, General!”

She switched channels again.

“ARF Trooper Raven is on it, and will directly inform you when the assault to the shield generator is ready.”

“Lovely. By the way: two of my men have managed to infiltrate into the city, keep an eye out for them and try not to shoot at them!”

“As if my men were happy-trigger!”, she exclaimed with exaggerated offense. “Everybody knows we are the stabbing kind! Dani out!”

She leapt, this time with a bit of aid from the Force, to get to the other side of a wide avenue.

“Base Leaders, report?”

“Base Leader 2, south-west secured!”, Bubble replied diligently.

“Base Leader 1, north set up!”, Apollo piped up.

“Base Leader 3, south-east is ours!”, Thread said smugly.

“Good job, stay in touch with the snipers and keep your comms open to everybody.”

“Copy that!”

“Roger.”

“You got it.”

She dropped to a plaza surrounded by tall buildings with large balconies and wide archs. In it, her troops had already set-up the main camp under Ian’s leadership. She saw the colourful pattern of Feather’s armour and waved to get his attention.

“That come out very nice!”, she called out to him, smiling widely.

“Thank you, sir! It really did!”, he called back. “We ought to do it more often!”

Dani laughed and nodded in answer. She made a beeline for the med-tent and peeked inside, anxiety setting on her chest. Apple and Shades where there, patching up the bunch of troopers sitting around.

“Casualties?”, she asked.

“Three dead, around fifteen injuries, non of them severe”, Apple reported.

The General flinched at the number of deaths, as small as it was. A part of her brain supplied that it was a good number, and despite another part wanting to say that it was right, she hated herself for it.

“Copy. We’re proceeding with phase two.”

“Keep your eyes open!”, she heard Shades call from the tent as she exited it.

“Your mind cold, and your heart warm!”, she completed the chant, not pausing on her steps.

“Open eyes, cold mind, warm heart”, the troopers that had heard them muttered, nodding to each other.

Dani huffed under her nose, half flattered that they had grown on the phrase she had made up at some point in her training in Kamino and half worried that they looked like some sort of sect. It had become the abridged, yet deepest way to describe the moral compass of the 0th. And who was she trying to fool? She was proud of that.

Ian and her made eye contact the moment they came to each other views, and the Commander gave a sharp nod. Luna returned the gesture: everything was going as planed, so there was nothing to discuss.

“Spider Team, moving out!”, he called as he fell into step with Dani, handing her her equipment, and thirty troopers followed them to the walls of the fortress.

The General buckled on the harness tied to the grappling hook, eying the towering building. The door was too massive and thick to attempt to go through without a gargantuan drill. That left the tiny windows and almost non-existent balconies than hung from the vertical external wall, high up. No orders were shouted: everybody knew what they had to do. They all aimed for different openings and shot the grappling hooks, then activated the harnesses to get hauled up. Those weren’t standard equipment, not even paid for by the Senate. Dani had ordered them and paid for them from her own pocket so, technically, it was illegal. But good luck to whoever tried to argue with her, and if somebody was to confiscate the material, she would just buy more: such was the advantage of having patented touch screens and pizza and have them distributed and sold all over the galaxy. If more Terrans ever came over they were gonna be sooooooooo pissed.

She smiled to herself as she unbuckled the harness and slipped through the austere window. She rolled on the floor, hand flying to her ‘saber, but there was nobody in the corridor. Dani stood up and hummed to herself, moving with swift, long strides. Her eyes lost focus as she focused on the living Force around her. She could see her men as dots of light, sweeping through rooms and slowly but surely regrouping. She had always encouraged them to move together, to not be afraid of needing help, and oh; how they enjoyed teasing her when she didn’t stick to her own sayings. There was a large number of dots concentrated higher up the building.

“Looks like they have barricaded themselves in the upper floors”, she spoke into the comm. “Stay alert, tho: there are some strays around.”

The Sergeants and Commander acknowledged her.

They were to meet in a reception room on the 23rd floor to make the last reassessment of the situation before proceeding with the final stage, but Dani wandered off to stalk one of the unknown dots walking around. Knowledge is power, after all. She slipped through a great diversity of rooms, frowning at the absence of defensive systems: no visible cameras, no turrets, no traps, no guards. It could possibly be that they were too busy trying to hold back the 212th. But who didn’t have a last bastion to protect their head?

“Do we have a way out secured?”, she asked into the comm., voice grave.

“Yes sir!”, an excited voice immediately replied. “We are opening the fortress doors as we speak, sir! And the energy shield just fell!”

“Watch your rear, I’m having goosebumps and I want a clear way out if this goes south.”

“Copy that, General!”

Luna hushed and peeked over a pillar, spotting a guard. Their dark grey armour was so heavy that it was impossible to make out any details of their physiology: only that it was humanoid, or at the very least, biped. She moved towards them, her steps silent and her dark clothes barely shifting as she lifted her hands and put them on either side of their head. They crumbled to the floor a second later, deeply asleep. She registered them, taking stock of their weaponry and looking over the armour design and its weak spots.

“If you encounter a guard, shoot at the crotch”, she reported, and moved on.

She was checking her surroundings with her Force-sight again to make sure there was nobody waiting to jump on her on top of the stairs, when she noticed two familiar but unknown spots moving together close by. They were... running away from something? She couldn’t quite grasp what it was, and that put her hairs on end.

“Changing route to check something”, she spoke quickly.

“Proceeding with rendezvous and awaiting your arrival, General”, Ian replied.

“Copy”, she nodded, and took off running towards the two dots. The closer she got, the more tension the air carried, and she found herself taking the lightsaber into her hands and adjusting the laser to a larger blade. With that done, she took another peek through the Force and took a steading breath.

Two orange-clad clone troopers rounded the corner towards her, shooting behind them. The one at the front was pulling at his partner, who seemed to have trouble running. They jerked a bit when they saw her, but barely faltered on their steps.

“Hey--!”, one started, trying to reach for her.

“GO!”, she ordered, face set in stone with cold, calculating eyes and a fire burning behind them.

Dani didn’t have the habit to wear her General badge, but her tone, combined with the weapon in her hand, was enough of an identifier.

They ran past each other, and she counted one step, two steps, before letting her knees buckle. She skidded through the deep blue carpet on her knees as a slim, metallic figure appeared from the corner, four lightsabers hissing furiously.

Luna severed one of his legs before his eyes could catch up with the blurry figure that had appeared below his line of sigh, and growled in irritation as the clones escaped him.

Dani hit a key on her comm.

“Kenobi! Your dance partner is here!”, she spitted, leaping away from the cyborg’s reach.

“Ventress?”

“No!”

“Maul?”

“Who the fuck is Maul?!”, she shrieked as she kicked open a door and slammed it shut behind her.

“Ah, it must be Grievous, then”, he hummed, and she could picture him slowly scratching his beard.

“Get him off of me! I can’t kidnap enemy leaders with him chasing me around!”, she hissed, leaping behind a couch of the two-floors wooden library she just entered, and switched channels. “Ian, Grievous is here, I’m engaged, you are in charge!”, and she shut off the comm. as the door was slammed open.

Dani was no fool: her duel skills were sufficient at best, don’t mind fighting against a quadruple wielder. Grievous was a formidable foe, but great part of his reputation laid in the intimidation and fear he inspired.

But two could play that game.

The cyborg walked into the room with his four arms.

Dani was a backstabber. She knew that, the whole GAR knew that. The word was an insult to those who had earned the Jaig Eyes, and awoke great uneasiness to all who valued trust over anything else. But she wasn’t going to feel ashamed of it. It was her strength, what had got her through the training in Kamino, what allowed her to come out of what could have been brutal fights practically unscathed, what made the casualty rate of the 0th to be of 55%. And that was counting all the smuggled clones as KIA or MIA.

Silently, she adjusted the length of the blade to a shorter setting, and took a deep breath, pulling her presence in: not so much as to shield herself from Force-sensitives, but to hide from senses. Still, she stayed behind to couch, listening to Grievous predatory prowl and the click of his metal parts.

When she peeked over the side of the furniture, his back was facing her. She watched the General with strangely soft eyes, considering her options: fight or flee? But no: she couldn’t weasel out of this, if he wasn’t engaging her, then he would be hunting down her men.

Decision made, she stepped out of her hiding spot and swung the hilt at his back, only turning on the lightsaber when it was already half-way down to his metal carcass.

But Grievous’ lower arms spun suddenly, punching her belly and flinging her backwards. She could only take half a breath before having to roll away from his sabres. She had managed not to drop her weapon, and narrowly blocked a slash to have enough purchase to throw a Force-kick at him. It was dirty, and ungraceful, but as long as it kept her alive she didn’t give a fuck. She scrambled to get to a different cover and shield herself again, but Dani could feel him already after her. Her mind raced, seeking distractions, escape routs, vantage points...

The door was kicked open yet again, and blaster bolts rained on the Separatist General. Luna saw over her shoulder the two 212th troopers, the relief of having backup short-lived to the realisation that now they were Grievous focus. She spun on her heel, bolting around to lash at him. She severed his other leg, forcing him to drop two ‘sabers to regain mobility. One lightsaber still spinning to block the baster fire, he turned around and furiously lashed at Dani.

She shrieked as it burn her clothes, skin and flesh, leaving a wide but luckily shallow gash from her left shoulder and across her chest. She stumbled backwards, gridding her teeth against the pain and doing her best to focus on the threat. Grievous didn’t gave her pause: he stopped caring about the clones and swung both swords at her. Dani blocked the attack, crying out when her skin tore at the movement, but managing to put all her strength in holding him back.

Something flared in the Force-sight, so clear that Luna didn’t need to look for it, and understood. The Force vibrated through the room and the books on the countless shelves exploded: flimsi flying everywhere around them. Grievous flinched, and she took the chance to turn around and step away. The cyborg growled, already lunging for her in a killing blow, when a shot made him drop the lightsaber in his right arm. Commander Ian stood at the second floor of the room, rifle resting on the wooden handrail and trained on Grievous. Dani spun around in the space opened by the lack of heat of doom, using the centrifuge force to bury the hilt of her weapon in his eye socket.

He cried out in pain, suddenly cornered. Luna rose her sword high, face scrunched up in pain and rage, ready to strike him down and avenge all the clones he had ever killed. But he suddenly sprung forwards, shoving himself and Dani out a window.

She froze as they got separated in the air, the world spinning without control. She distantly heard Ian crying out her name, but she couldn’t answer: she couldn’t get her body to react in any way, heart hammering and mind racing but muscles locked as she fell, and fell, and fell...

The air turned dense around her, slowing her down. Her whole being seemed to suddenly turn to jelly and she took a shaky breath, twisting her head back to see Kenobi on the ground, his hands open and pointing at her, while his men shot relentlessly at a fleeing Grievous. And then Raven was there, helping guide her to the ground.

“I brought reinforcements”, he said cheerfully, and Dani knew he was smirking under the helmet.

“Nice of you to drop by”, Kenobi added insult to injury, walking up to them.

Luna snorted, and would have answered if she wasn’t feeling so exhausted. The fact that she didn’t even try was enough of an alarm. A medic stepped forward and Dani flinched away from him, but Raven held her in place.

“Sir, please”, he sighed, and she deflated. Not like she was feeling like getting up and leaving.

So the medic, Helix, knelt down next to her and scanned the laser burn, already taking out bacta patches. Luna yelped when they touched the charred skin, doing her best to control her breathing until he took out an hypo and discharged it on her neck.

“Grievous?”, she asked, looking up at Obi-Wan.

“He escaped.”

“And the objective?”

“The 0th is taking care of it, sir”, another voice said.

“Boil, Waxer! Good to see you made it in one piece”, Kenobi greeted them.

It took a couple blinks, but Dani recognised them as the two 212th troopers who Grievous was chasing.

“Commander Ian went back to take over the assault on the safe room. Told us to come tell you, since your wrist comm. is disconnected. And, uh, thanks for the help, General Luna.”

She snorted and gave a thumbs up before letting her hand fall back and groaning softly.

“Can you walk?”, Obi-Wan asked, voice soft.

“I don’t know...”, she huffed, testing the strength of her legs. It wasn’t promising.

“Here, sir”, Raven said, slipping his arms under her knees and shoulders.

Dani sighed tiredly, holding onto him as the ARF carried her, bridal style, and closed her eyes.

 

She woke up covered in a fresh blanket, something soft under her, but not as soft as her bed. She scrunched up her nose at the smell of bacta, jerking her head a bit. She noticed the hand over hers when it moved.

“Morning”, Ian greeted her.

“Mornin’”, she replied before yawning and moving her free hand to rub at her eyes. “Where are we?”

“Base 1, about to get picked up.”

“The mission?”

“We have the Separatist leader. Kenobi is talking to them.”

“Okay. Okay”, she breathed, closing her eyes again.

“Hey, Apollo said to try to keep you awake”, he nudged her.

“Yeah, yeah, just resting my eyes...”, she tried to swat him away.

“Would you PLEASE stop trying to physically fight the sedatives?”, Apollo asked as he approached, exasperated.

“Neveeeeeeerrrrrrrr”, Dani hissed playfully, curling every articulation in her body in an attempt to loosen up her muscles before letting herself go limp and repeating.

“Your skin is still full of blisters. Do you really want to risk bursting those?”, he told her off, hands resting on his hips. His armour was painted with musical signs from all the cultures he had encountered.

“...No”, Luna admitted, going still and prodding lightly at the bandages over her chest.

“Apollo, if you don’t mind, I’d like to speak to the General in private”, Ian spoke up, all business.

“Yes, sir. I’ll be close by if I am needed. And please, keep her from poking at her burns.”

“Will do”, the Commander nodded at the medic as the latter exited the lonely tent.

When he turned back, after checking that Apollo had indeed left them alone, Dani’s eyes where on him, giving him her full attention and patiently waiting for him to speak with a neutral expression.

“That was a close call”, he sighed, and she nodded slowly. “I couldn’t be able to carry on with the 0th’s activities on my own. And I think I’m not wrong when I say you wouldn’t be able to either, if I were to die.”

She diverted her eyes, not liking that thought at all, but unable to deny the truth in it.

“You are right”, she agreed quietly. “What do you propose?”, her voice was low, her eyes soft. She wasn’t demanding solutions: she was prodding for what she knew was a continuation.

Ian turned his helmet in his hands, stroking the two thick diagonal black lines born from the front of its crest, before answering.

“Appoint a Third In Command”, he said, glancing at her.

Dani’s eyes widened minutely, but her expression quickly morphed into understanding and deep thought.

“They would be aware of _all_ of our operations and assist in coordinating them, no matter if we are down or not; but they must be able to take hold of the situation and keep our operations and intel net steady if either of us is killed”, he continued.

She settled against the pillows, sighing.

“It has to be somebody we really, really trust...”, she mused, running a list through her mind. “The first name that comes to mind is Shades, but he is already CMO, we can’t throw more paperwork at him... Pedal has all my trust too, but if I promote him to Captain I’ll lose my Prime Pilot... Laa’ka is out of the question: I’m sending him off to ARC training... Thread is still too new, I would rather watch him some more as Lieutenant before stepping up anything... And recruiting somebody with the sole purpose of becoming Captain without knowing anything about what we do is very risky...”, she mused.

“We shouldn’t rush it: loosing our nerve is just gonna make things worse for us in the long run. I say we start gathering names, and we can meet up once a week to check backgrounds and discuss candidates.”

“It’s a date”, Dani snickered.


	11. 79's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dani cracking a cold one with the boys and meeting the 501st squad

The 0th was on leave on Coruscant. During the day, Dani visited Yaddle and Vokara, picked up some fruits and other supplies, checked the status of her enterprises and met with Padmé Amidala, her contact in the Republic Senate. Dani went to meet her right before being sent to Kamino for training and told her about her situation and plan. She had never thought she would tell her story to a politician she had just met, but Padmé seemed so... worthy of that trust. Since her plan included maintaining dialogue with the Separatist Senate, which could evolve into finding a pacific way to end the war if both sides kept their word during their association, she had agreed to play that role. So they met for lunch in a random level of the capital, and they spoke in code:

“I got confirmation that the pizzas got delivered and the ingredients were still fresh”, Dani smiled over a violet soda.

“That’s wonderful!”, Padmé smiled back. “Are you going to expand the distribution?”

“Not yet, I haven’t had time to be on the ground lately and you know that I like to talk to possible distributors myself. It’s all about trust and compromise, and it’s hard to find, you know?”

“Surely”, the Senator nodded, taking a sip of her light alcohol.

“At the moment I’m satisfied with keeping the delivers steady and knowing that the product reaches its destination and is treated well all along the process.”

“A wonderful set of politics for your enterprise. If only my fellow Senators were more like you”, she sighed jokingly.

And Amidala would tell her about the situation in the Senate. Dani listened attentively, throwing in experiences as Commanding Officer and making little insinuations to get to send her more money that Padmé knew to ignore completely, since it was part of the act in case someone was leave eavesdropping. Dani had more than enough money to finance extra-official operations, well under the Chancellor’s radar.

After a long day if making sure everything was under control, night fell. And it was time to go to 79’s.

Dani put on a brightly coloured button-up shirt over a tank top, letting in flow freely around her, long jeans and comfortable trainers, and met with a group of the 0th to go there together. Laa’ka was joining them that night, having returned not long ago from ARC training: he had ran to show off his new kama and armour: a black crescent moon painted over the face of his helmet, engulfing his left eye in it. He insisted that he wanted to introduce her to some ARCs he had met when he had been sent out on the field as a part of his training.

So the group walked in the bar, and everybody who saw Dani started alerting the others that she was there. Not because she was a General. The first time she had come in and she had been asked, she had said she was a civvie, and nobody ever argued that. Those who knew, knew because they had seen her in the battlefield, but they weren’t going to ruin the fun.

The bartender saw Dani and scrambled to a device, and Terran music started to play. She bounced lightly on her feet at the rhythm, still focused on talking with her companions and ordering drinks. She tried, really tried to sit and drink with them, but she was biting her lip in anticipation and Pedal was eye-siding her, wanting to see how much she could hold.

 _Dragostea din tei_ started playing and she bolted and ran to the dancefloor, all the bar cheering as she finally did. She was blushing hard but couldn’t stop smiling despite herself. Truth be told: that was the main and only reason for going to 79’s to her. A lot of troopers went just to have a nice chat, hook up or drown their pain in alcohol, but Dani wasn’t a fan of that. If she could take somebody that was trying to get wasted and pull them to the dancefloor to try and cheer them up, she did. She loved dancing. Dancing alone, or playing with the people around her, being silly, missstepping and loosing the rhythm and finding it again with a different style. She danced through four songs until she was out of breath and walked over to take a seat among her men, who received her with cheers. Two unknown clones sat at the table.

“Dani, these are Echo and Fives”, Laa’ka introduced them.

“Hi! Nice to meet you!”, she smiled, offering them a handshake.

“A pleasure, ma’am”, Echo nodded.

“Nice moves”, Fives grinned.

She melted in giggles, turning red before taking a sip of her drink.

“You won’t be able to buy her with compliments, partner”, Apple snorted.

“Well, I think that’s because you guys don’t compliment her enough”, he pressed.

“Nah, it’s because I don’t know how to take praise with dignity”, she shook her head with an amused smile. “So. Laa’ka says you guys are ARC’s?”

“We are. Have been for some time, now”, Echo replied. “That’s why they sent us Laa’ka as an intern.”

“Did you have to babysit him a lot?”

“Hey!”, he protested, but there was no bite in it.

“A lot less reckless that I would have expected for a rookie, to be honest”, Fives answered with a bob of his head. “Keep that cautiousness up and you might be able to see the end of the war, kid.”

“Good to know”, Dani said, staring into Laa’ka’s eyes. He stared back, supressing a snort.

“And how did you guys meet?”, Fives asked, and damn, they all froze, blinking at him. “I, uh, was just wondering how a civilian met the lot of you.”

All the 0th was staring at Dani, waiting for her to call the shots. She didn’t really like to lie, even less to Echo and Fives, who seemed like alright people so far, but she also didn’t want to ruin the mood of the night by telling the truth. Her men knew the truth but they also knew not to call her General or sir when they were off-duty, and there was enough trust among themselves that nobody was uncomfortable when she was nearby.

“Well, I had heard about 79’s and I was curious about it, so I guess I just walked in and started talking.”

“And dancing”, Pedal added.

“And dancing”, she nodded. “Is that what everybody remembers me for?”

“There are far worse things to be remembered by!”, Apple huffed.

“Yeah, I’m not really gonna complain about that”, she snickered.

“Are you a professional dancer?”, Fives asked, and Dani blushed yet again.

“No, no! I just do it for fun. It also helps me de-stress”, she explained quickly.

“Not a bad choice”, Echo hummed.

“But enough talking about me. Unless you wanna come dance, of course. I bet you have lots of exciting stories to tell!”

“Whatever Fives tells, remember to turn down the coolness by 300% to have the realistic experience—Auch!”

Fives elbowed Echo playfully and they shared a look. Dani couldn’t help but think that they behaved like twins.

“Are you batchmates?”, she asked suddenly.

The ARCs turned to look at her with wide eyes.

“Yes”, Echo eventually replied. “How did you...?”

“Oh, I know some, uhm, clone-slang, I guess. And you seem really close. Sorry, I think I overstepped my boundaries...”

“No, no, it’s alright! I just didn’t think I would ever her those words coming out of a reg-born’s mouth. No offense.”

“Non taken.”

“It takes a lot more than that to offend Dani. I think I have never seen you angry”, Pedal gestured with his drink at her.

“Could be. But I do get angry every now and then.”

“It’s true, though. I don’t think I have ever seen you angry, either”, Laa’ka muttered.

“Well, maybe I have never gotten angry with you.”

“I have seen your anger”, Raven chimed in, raising a hand to ask for another drink. Everybody at the table looked at him, expectant. Dani narrowed her eyes a little: _Careful. Witnesses._ He nodded minutely, easy mistaken for a slight tremble. “My first time seeing cold anger. Who would have thought that silence and faked indifference could be way more terrifying than screaming and violence.”

“Did I scare you?”, she huffed playfully.

“Pissed my blacks right on the spot”, he shook his head, and the whole table howled with laughter.

A waitress brought some more drinks and met Dani’s eyes. They smiled at each other.

“Will you be dancing again tonight? I love watching you”, she said, catching Luna off-guard.

She startled a bit.

“S-Sure! You can bet I’ll be up there soon!”

“Nice. Enjoy your drinks!”

The waitress turned around and left, not seeing Dani turn her head and look downwards.

“Force, you are a mess”, Apple snickered.

“Shaddup!”, she yelped with a wide smile. “I don’t know how to speak to people!”

“Correction: you don’t know how to speak to pretty girls”, Echo corrected, catching on.

“Pretty girls are people too!”, she banged the table with her fist and then her head, and her men laughed; somebody rubbing their hand against her back in pitiful consolation.

“I could teach you some pick-up lines!”, Fives piped up.

“Oh, Force, please no”, Echo muttered.

“My pick-up lines are great!”

“Your pick-up lines are horrible! They don’t make any sense!”

“It’s not about the sense, it’s about the love in them!”

Dani rose her head, snickering.

“Enlighten me.”

“Okay”, he said, clearing his throat and leaning towards her and doing what must have been what he understood as ‘seductive face’, “Hey, beautiful: did you just walk out from the manda? Because you make me feel like a nexus!”

She blinked at him, lips pressed.

“I... don’t understand what just happened.”

“Oh, Force, is Fives embarrassing himself again?”, a newcomer asked.

Three clones neared them with drinks of their own: two bald; one with a gigantic Republic-cog tattoo and the other with neat blue lines and spots, the third with an intricate lightning short cut.

“Nah, just trying to pass some wisdom down to me”, Dani answered with a tilt of her head. “Grab some chairs, we can make room for you”, she invited them with a gesture of her hand.

“Oh, thanks...”

“Dani.”

“Thank you, Dani. I’m Kix.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Jesse.”

“Oh, cool name!”

“Thanks!”

“Hardcase.”

“My pleasure. My handsome companions here are: Laa’ka, Apple, Raven and Pedal.”

“Nice to see you, kid”, they greeted Laa’ka.

“I met them when I was helping out with the 501st”, he explained to her.

Her lips quirked when she recognised Anakin’s battalion.

“So you are the legendary Kix”, she said, turning to him and resting an elbow on the table, her head leaning on her hand and a cocky smile. “The Handsomest of Them All.”

“She already has better pick-up lines than you”, Echo whispered to Fives.

“Don’t let it get to you: this is her 17th try and she had to get the right person eventually”, Pedal laughed under his nose, taking a sip of his drink.

“Pedal!”, she said with fake indignation and picked up a napkin to ball it up and throw it at him. “I was looking so cool and you ruined it!”

He laughed louder and deflected the projectile easily.

“You better pick that up ‘cause I won’t do it for you.”

Dani stood up and crouched to pick up the piece of paper, dropping it on the table.

“Well, since I’m already up I’m gonna dance some more. Nice to meet you all, see you ‘round!”

They bid her farewell and watched her dance through the night. Fives and Hardcase eventually went up with her, dancing to music of her planet without knowing it. The first time she came here, she copied all the music in her phone and handed it to the bartender, and it was quite a hit.

If things got dire, maybe she could patent the music too.

Nah, that would be too low: if she had decided not to patent penicillin, she wouldn’t patent music that wasn’t hers.

She didn’t know Anakin was around too, tho. Maybe that was the reason why Amidala was so eager to end their lunch-date...


	12. Kamino II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beginning of Phase II of Dani's training

A maintenance clone brought her her training armour when she had barely gotten up from her bunk.

“Specially made, ma’am”, the clone said, handing the pile to her.

“Oh...! Thanks!”, she fumbled, caressing the white plastoid with careful fingers, almost entranced.

The clone smiled under his nose.

“I’m sure you will take good care of it.”

Dani jerked her head up to look deep into his eyes, so similar to hers.

“I will”, she smiled back. “Thank you very much.”

He nodded and left. Luna went back inside and left the pieces on the bed, doing her best to figure out quickly how to gear up. She started with the chest plate: easy enough to put on and adjust. She tried to put on the part that looked like a diaper next and felt a surge of dirty pleasure when it didn’t slide up her thighs: _Oh my, error in design. Guess I won’t be wearing diapers anytime soon... Oh no..._ She threw the piece to a corner without a care in the world. The thigh protectors were kinda annoying too, but those fit well so she didn’t have any excuse to discard them. She put the knee-piece upside-down and had to take it off to turn it around. Her leg slid easily through the calf part and she finally picked up a shoe, staring at it, wondering what kind of army was issued white crocs. The shoulder bells gave her a fight, but she managed to strap them on pressing them against the wall to hold them in place: same with the elbow braces. She stared at the helmet for a moment, grimacing at her reflection, before putting it on and double-checking where she had to go before heading out.

When she arrived there there were already ten clones forming up, so she hurried to join them. The instructor was walking in front of them and gave her a tinny nod of approval. She smiled briefly, keeping her eyes on them: they were a kind of alien that she hadn’t seen before; green skin and big blue-violet eyes, with their head diverging into two protuberances. Dani wondered quietly if their species had two brains.

They waited in silence, she guessed that waiting for the right time to begin, and she was doing her best effort to keep herself from asking when the door to the training room swished open and a clone skidded to a halt right next to her, putting on his helmet and standing straight.

“Glad that you could join us, CT-6454”, the instructor scolded him, “Please, try to be punctual next time.”

“Yes, sir! Sorry, sir!”, he replied with such vigour that Luna almost flinches away.

“I am El-Les”, the instructor continued with his pacing. “I will be your supervisor until you graduate: blaster, rifle, basic communications, basic strategy and advanced combat training and something else if the guys from above feel like spicing you up.”

He turned, studying them. Dani was standing at attention just like the others, with the only differences being her just-a-little-tad smaller complexion and the lack of a piece of her armour. El-Les rose an inexistent eyebrow.

“Your armour is incomplete, trooper”, he mused.

“Sorry, sir. It didn’t fit, sir”, she replied, short and quick. She was quite fond of how military slang nudged the speaker to say as little as possible.

“I see. Issue a new part once we are done for the day.”

_No, thanks_

“Pick up your training blasters and line up, I want to see your aim by myself before we start anything.”

The clones turned with parade sharpness. Dani turned on her heels, caught off guard but still able to salvage the situation. She supressed a sigh. These were going to be a quite taxing months...

A finger poked between her shoulder blades and she yelped, brusquely turning her head around.

“Hi”, the clone behind her waved briefly.

“Hi?”, she returned, frowning. She thought they weren’t supposed to chatter while in training.

“I’m Unruly. Nice to meet you”, he smirked at her.

“Dani. And likewise”, she nodded, and turned away.

 

She waited for El-Les to dismiss them to rip off her helmet and ruffle her sweaty hair to unstuck it from her skull, taking a deep breath of stinky air.

“Nice aim, reg-born”, Unruly piped up.

“Thanks. Your’s not bad either”, she huffed playfully.

Three more clones neared them.

“So, what’s a reg-born doing here?”, the one walking in front asked, chin up.

“Training”, she shrugged.

“You’ll have to do a lot of that if you want to catch up to us”, he continued.

“Well, not all of us are genetically engineered to kick ass since moment 0th”, she shrugged yet again, raising her palms to the air and relaxing her stance.

The praise caught all of them off guard, eyes widening and a couple even flinching in surprise. She giggled under her nose as the trio glanced at each other.

“S-Sorry. That was rude of me. I’m Bee”, the supposed leader said, and Luna took stock of the two straight bald lines at the top of his temples.

“Sal”, the one with the longest hair combed backwards saluted her with two fingers.

“Zero”, the last one nodded.

“I’m Dani. Nice to meet you”, she smiled sincerely, pleased that she had been able to turn their approach around. “You ever been in this group before, or is it recently formed?”

“It’s new”, Unruly confirmed.

“The three of us know each other since we were cadets, but yeah, it’s our first time, too”, Zero added.

Dani hummed softly, pleased. Sal was staring at her body.

“Something the matter?”, she asked.

The troopers head snapped up, looking startled. “Nothing. Sorry.”

“S’okay. I guess it’s normal to be curious. If you have questions, feel free to ask, and I’ll tell you if I rather not answer something.”

“How old are you?”, Unruly asked, hand running through his messy hair.

“Right now? About seventeen. You?”, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the answer. They looked like they where on their late teens, but...

“Seven.”

_What the fuck. WHAT THE FUCK._

She did her best to not scream, run to wherever Shaak Ti was keeping her lightsaber and kill every Kaminoan to cross her path. Instead, she swallowed and kept her mouth shut.

“Now, really: why are you here?”, Bee tried again, this time with a way friendlier voice.

“I want to be a General.”

“Why? I mean, you could have stayed away from the war, and you are going to throw yourself into it?”, Zero inquired.

Dani held his gaze with unexpected sharpness.

“Short answer: yes. Long answer: this war is fucked as hell and it’s being lengthened by war profiteers just for the sake of making themselves richer at the cost of the impoverishment of the working class, specifically, inhabitants of the Outer Rim. It has not escaped me that the representatives of those systems have less power in the Senate and their needs, which are usually about humanitarian help and request of funds for basic supplies, are often dismissed on favour of requests made by Kaminoans and other Human planets, whose requests do not consist of FOOD AND MEDICINE TO KEEP THEIR PEOPLE ALIVE. The whole situation sucks, so yeah, my plan is to become General and do everything in my power to end this war once and for all.”

The clones stared at her, shocked, until Unruly patted her back and laughed dryly.

“Well, you just got yourself a loyal solider, sir!”

Luna startled and gave an incredulous, if not a tad uncomfortable smile. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw four more clones from their group, watching them from the distance. A bald one gave her an ugly look, and she narrowed her eyes at them. They turned around and left. Bee and the others had noticed her staring into the distance and turned to watch them leave.

“Are they gonna be a problem?”, she grumbled.

“CT-6450 and his three lap dogs have delusions of becoming Commandos. Poor idiots don’t understand that you have to be bred for that”, Sal mumbled.

“They are probably going to give you a bad time”, Unruly bobbed his head. “But well, they like to pick on everyone. Don’t take it personally... Or do, and punch them hard in the face.”

“I’m not one for unnecessary violence, but I’ll keep that in mind. I gotta go. I’ll see you guys around?”

They gestured goodbye and she ran off to Force training.

 

“Alright, let’s try again. Cloak us both”, Shaak Ti nodded.

Dani rolled her shoulders and took a deep breath: hiding herself was natural, but expanding that to other people and keep it steady had taken months of practice, and she still faltered every know and then. The Jedi had suggested to move on to more duelling or some other skill she wanted to try out, but Luna had insisted on polishing this one. She wanted it to be flawless.

It was as if a weight that they were already used to lifted from every inch of their skin. As if the air didn’t even shift around their bodies. As if they weren’t even breathing, despite clearly doing so.

“Living organisms in the room: 0” a droid recited.

That was their cue to move on to the next step: movement.

They walked beside each other, steps coming out swift and silent.

“Living organisms in the room: 0”, the droid repeated after five minutes.

Dani and Shaak Ti started jogging. It was harder for Dani, who had to put effort in keeping up with the Jedi and maintaining their invisibility. The droid’s head jerked a bit, but it seemed to dismiss whatever signals it had received.

“I need a brake”, Luna finally huffed, and Shaak Ti felt the weight get back on her skin.

“Living organisms in the room: 2.”

“Fifteen minutes of continued cloaking, ten of which while on the move. You are improving.”

“Thanks”, she breathed, taking in a gulp of air.

“Would you like to try out the effectiveness of sound-cloaking, now?”

“Nah. I want to be able to sneak around, and I will obviously not be speaking out loud while I’m at it.”

“Wouldn’t it be ideal if you could move and talk while being undetected?”

Dani looked at her, face scrunched up in thought.

“Well, of course it would. Another thing would be if I am able to pull it off”, she shook her head slightly, feeling more rested. “I’m ready to try again, if that’s okay for you.”

“Let’s.”

 

The shooting range was so boring. Dani’s aim was not the best, but it wasn’t bad enough the be too critical either. The static targets were the worst. Once she had figured out the blaster’s and rifle’s deviation and find a way to make up for it, she had felt as if she were forever trapped in a shooter-videogame tutorial. The moving targets were a little more interesting, and oh boy, the Commando Droids gave quite the adrenaline rush. She had been mesmerized at the way they moved. So, that she had forgotten to shoot at them.

A blaster bolt flew by from behind her and she gasped, turning around.

“That one would have killed you”, El-Las hummed.

“...Sorry, sir.”

“Proceed”, he nodded. “Let’s see if you can at least shoot one down.”

_Okay. Keep calm and shoot. It’s gonna be hard, but it can be done, so I can do it._

That’s what she told herself as the targets kept coming at her. The more she shot, the more she knew she didn’t like it. And it was about to get worse when they started practising in squads, and even worse once they were graduated and out in the field.

_Quit_

_Go home_

_Run back to Earth_

_Stay safe_

_Nobody can follow you there_

_NO_ , she hushed her fear and anxiety. I’m going to do it. It’s going to suck but I’m going to do it, and then I will be able to do the things _I_ want to do.

It worked. Before the session ended, she had shot down one Commando Droid.

“Well done, troopers. Tomorrow we’ll be splitting in two groups and working on basic formations. You are dismissed.”

Dani spaced out, thinking of what to do: she could go meditate, or do some research to be readier when it was time to begin Medic training, or pay a visit to the Tongue-Batch... She hadn’t seen the kids in nearly a week, since her dinner schedule had changed slightly too... She would try to make time to go see them, but first, she needed a shower.

So she waved goodbye to Bee, Sal, Unruly, Zero and Cabur, who had gathered the courage to speak to her and introduce himself.

“Name’s Cabur. I’m the one usually keeping an eye on those four”, he had gestured to Sal, Zero and Bee.

“Ah, so you are the mom-friend”, she had nodded with a knowing smile.

Cabur was a good man. Remembered her of her father.

That last thought shook her more than she had expected as she entered the shower and emotions flooded her. She cleared her throat and softly sang under the water stream, thinking about her parents as tears mixed with the spray and mist forming.

She missed her dad. She missed her mom.

After the cleaning and emotional release, she was as relaxed as she could be, considering to just lay on bed for a while enveloped in her towel.

“You sing very well.”

Dani shrieked, head snapping in the direction of the voice and left hand clawing for something to use as a weapon.

“Shhhhh! It’s just me!”, Unruly put his hands up, motioning for her to relax.

“How did you get here?!”, she hissed from where she stood, rigid as a pillar.

“Through the door”, he smirked gesturing to it, visibly proud of himself.

“You need a code to enter!”

“I hacked it.”

Luna huffed, half-embarrassed that he had heard her sing and half shocked by the weirdness of the situation.

“So? What are you doing here?”, she grumbled.

“I wanted to see your room.”

“Couldn’t you ask me to show it to you?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”, he crossed his legs, sitting at the foot of her bed and leaning against the wall. His expression changed abruptly. “But, I will leave if this makes you uncomfortable.”

They studied each other’s expressions for a handful of seconds.

Dani sighed.

“Okay. You can stay”, she went to pick up her clothes and turned to the bathroom. “I’m going to get dressed. Don’t come in.”

“Yessir!”

She stepped out dressed in clean blacks, trying her best to style her hair. It was getting too long for her taste, but she didn’t dare cutting it herself. It must have shown on her face.

“How long since your last haircut?”

“Before coming here”, she answered, hanging the towel to dry.

“I could give it a try, if you want.”

She perked up at that.

“You have done it before?”

“Sure. Who do you think does all the cool haircuts around here? If the war ends abruptly, we can always be hairdressers”, he shrugged.

Dani laughed softly at that.

“Okay. Yes, if you don’t mind, please.”

They dragged the only chair in the room to the bathroom and she dug for the scissors and a hairbrush.

“You need anything else?”, she asked.

“I know you just took a shower but it would be great if you could wash your hair again.”

Luna just turned and leaned to get her head under she water spray, making sure all of it got wet with her hands. When she closed the spray, Unruly put a towel on her shoulders.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it”, he said, inviting her to sit with a gesture of his hand, picking up the hairbrush with the other. “Well, then. How do you want it?”

“Undercut. Try to keep the curls on the top proportional to the shortcut from under.”

“Copy that, sir, General, sir.”

Dani chuckled at his joking tone as he started brushing her hair. She stared to her reflection: her eyes, her posture, the strange shape her hair took as Unruly brushed it in different directions to get it out of the way and be able to cut easily. He was being pretty careful not to hurt her, and seemed to be enjoying himself.

“You have nice curls”, he hummed. “I mean, most of my brothers have curly hair too, but yours are much... wider.”

“Thanks. I got them from my mother”, she replied, voice fading.

Her chest jerked in a sob.

She stared at her own eyes, and then at Unruly’s. Their identical eyes.

She had thought it had been enough in the shower, but once she started, she couldn’t stop. He leaned forward, away from the scissors and pulled her knees to her chest, holding her head in her hands.

Unruly cursed behind her.

“Aw, osik! You were lying, weren’t you? You didn’t want me to stay here, Force, I’m an asshole, I only entered because we were told not to come in here and I have a thing for doing forbidden things, but damn I’m such a dumbass I’m very sorry—”

“It’s not that”, she sobbed, and still needed a long minute to gather herself. “It’s just... My parents used to cut my hair. It’s silly,” she smiled through the tears, “because I have had my hair cut without them, but— but—”

“Hey”, Unruly called with incredible soothing voice, gently stroking the side of her arm and kneeling in front of her. “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain yourself at all if you don’t want to. I can’t really say I know how’s it like to miss your parents...” he tried to joke. Dani’s lip trembled upwards for a second. “... but I can understand what it’s like to feel lost.”

“I miss my mom”, she sobbed, furiously trying to dry her tears to no avail. “I miss my dad...”

“I’m sorry, kid.”

She huffed a laugh despite herself.

“Kid? I double your age...!”

Unruly snorted.

“Well, I would say I am way more mature than you!”

“Says the one who just admitted liking to do things just because they are forbidden”, she continued, and this time, when she dried her tears, no more came out.

Unruly laughed, shaking his head. “Okay, okay, you got me there... But you still feel like ‘kid’ to me”, he said, picking up the scissors and making a gesture, asking permission for continuing.

Dani snorted and nodded.

“Alright, I will allow that. But only because you are you.”

“And I wouldn’t want it any other way”, she saw him smile through the mirror.

 

Force-parkour training was going fairly well. She could run through the forest and city landscapes pretty easily, but every now and then a feet slipped, or she miscalculated the Force-enhancing required and ended face-first against a wall. Like today. Her nose wasn’t broken thanks to her habit of turning her head right in reflex, but the left side of her face throbbed and was bruising. Shaak Ti had send her off to medical and told her to do some meditation in her room when she was done. Now she walked the corridor with distant eyes, earning sympathetic looks when somebody saw her face. She sighed, disliking the attention but knowing that she wasn’t allowed to cloak herself outside Force training, so she turned to a narrower hallway to avoid the most crowded parts of the installation.

She was forbidden to use the Force and still wore the bracelet, but she had been working on finding a way around it since moment 0th. She just had to bend the Force so it didn’t go near her left arm, and she could use her Force-sight without it beeping.

Dani groaned internally as she recognized CT-6450 and his three best mates around the corner. There was another Force-signature, tho, one that she had noticed more than one near her surroundings.

She turned the corner and saw the four troopers surrounding a janitor, bending over him with cruel smiles. They heard her steps and turned to look at her. She didn’t say anything, just stared at them and continued walking down the corridor. All of them thought she was going to walk past them, but she stopped next the maintenance clone and kept staring at them, expressionless.

“Is there a problem?”, CT-6450 growled.

“I dunno. Is there?”, she shrugged, blinking blankly at him. Despite the lack of emotion on her face, it was as if her voice was holding a knife.

“It’s none of your business”, one of his followers stepped forward, CT-6448.

“I bet you have lots of other things to do, reg-born”, another one snarled.

“Yeah, keep moving!”

“How about no?”, she answered instead, holding her wrists behind her back.

“Then...”, CT-6451 cracked his knuckles menacingly.

Dani stared at his fists for a moment, and snorted. She plainly started laughing hysterically. The clones looked at each other, at a loss.

“She’s lost it!”

“That woman’s crazy!”

“Nah, she just knows we’re going to kick her ass”, CT-6450 snickered, stepping forward.

It was then when Luna rose her head, a diabolical smile plastered on her face that made them froze on their spots and jerk backwards.

“Oh, boys, how are you going to beat my ass, when you already have?”, she purred when she had calmed down.

“What—?”, CT-6452 started asking.

“They attacked me!”, she suddenly shrieked, body language showing vulnerability and anxiousness. “I did nothing to them, but they cornered me...!”, a tear fell down her cheek. “I asked them to leave me alone but they wouldn’t...!

And her voice shook and her lips trembled as she gestured to the forming bruise on her face. She gave a few more irregular sobs before sobering up and just standing there, the act over.

“In conclusion: leave”, and the knife was back in her voice, eyes boring a hole through their brains.

CT-6450 stepped back, and so did the others. They fled with a fast walk.

Dani sighed loudly and turned to the janitor, who blinked at her with fear in his eyes.

“Sorry about that”, she apologised, lip curling downwards. “I was under the impression that they were pestering you. I’m Dani. Nice to meet you”, she tried, offering a hand.

The clone eyed it for a moment before taking it. She shook it softly, cracking a small smile.

“I’m 99. And... I don’t blame them”, he said, and turned to his cart to keep cleaning the glass window.

“Well, I think you should. They don’t have any right to be rude to you.”

“We are bred to be soldiers, and some of us... don’t get to have a shining armour.”

“That still doesn’t mean you are less than them”, she insisted, and her voice had lost all of the previous sharpness. “You know that, right?”

He stopped for a moment and turned to her, considering.

“Thank you”, he said slowly. “Maybe... you should go to get your face checked out. It’s turning a lot of colours...”

Dani made the mistake to raise a hand to touch her face and flinched at the contact.

“Ow! Yeah, maybe I should... Well, uh, see you around, then! Don’ hesitate to seek me out if they keep bothering you.”

“Wait!”, he called, and she turned on her heels. “Were you... were you really going to blame your bruise on them?”, he asked, hesitant.

“Hell no!!!”, she laughed, and this time it was a benign laugh. “Nah, I just wanted to scare them off...! Shaak Ti would have heard about the affair and she saw me face-plant against a wall during training, there’s no way I could have pulled it off!”, she huffed nervously.

“Oh...”, 99 mouthed, and he seemed to relax slightly. “What would you have done, then, if it didn’t work?”

“Uh... fight them, I guess”, she eyes the cleaning cart. “Do you have any cleaning products in there?”, she pointed.

“I do.”

“I would have probably spilled some on them. I have no delusions of being able to win by fist-fighting four genetically engineered guys”, she mused, head bobbing in thought.

99 blinked, maybe shocked by the idea, maybe by her attitude.

“I... see”, he mused.

“Something else?”, she asked politely.

“Oh, no, no. Sorry I am keeping you.”

“No worries! We should hang out some time!”

He chuckled softly at her enthusiasm.

“Sure. Go get that bruise treated, trooper.”

Dani half turned away and gave a lopsided smile. “See you around, soldier!”

And she disappeared around the corner.

99 shook his head with an incredulous smile. What a curious reg-born...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zero, Bee, Sal and Cabur are part of a cameo! Check out my other Star Wars fic if you want to know their fate


	13. Therapeutic Reasons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 0th gets a loth cat. For therapeutic reasons.

Dani was sitting on a tree, seeking isolation and watching his men move around like white ants from behind the red leafs. The planet they were on to defend an important city from Separatists incursions was painfully similar to Earth. Well, the landscapes at least were. The animals were all... wrong. Not wrong _wrong_ , more like... The only thing that gave away that it wasn’t home.

There was a weight on her mind, but it wasn’t related to homesickness. A lot had happened recently, bad things... And her coping mechanisms couldn’t keep up. The fact that she had climbed up a tree without telling anyone was proof of that.

_Stupid, stupid, get down, go talk to someone..._

But Shades wasn’t available at the moment. Shades was the one she always went to in moments like this. And because she couldn’t feel him in her proximity, her body did not move.

She just sat there, until a light on her wristcomm started blinking silently.

“Yeah?”, she answered, voice raspy.

“The town’s leader has requested to meet with you to receive an update”, Ian said.

Oh, luring her out with work. Not bad...

“Meet you in five”, she croaked and hung up, rubbing furiously at her face.

Luna took a deep, shaky breath, and jumped off the tree. She startled a group of troopers, but nobody called her out on it. Her eyes were trained on the ground as she made her way to the biggest building in the small village. Yeah, their orders were to defend the city, but the towns around it were way more vulnerable. Having troops stationed in them also made for a good perimeter, so...

Commander Ian was waiting at the door, helmet on and hands behind his back.

“Sir”, he greeted, meeting her almost dead stare.

“Hi”, she said weakly, and cleared her throat before stepping inside.

Several people were waiting inside, all humans with pitch black skin.

Dani and Ian made the appropriate bow.

“General Luna”, the town leader greeted with a bow of her head. “We were discussing if an evacuation might be best for our people. We were hoping you could inform us of the situation and give us your opinion before making a final decision”, she gestured to her councillors.

She nodded sharply and took in air:

“We have suffered some important losses in our ranks, ma’am. Our strategy is already changing to accommodate to the intel we have gathered, and we have high hopes that we’ll be able to disrupt their operations in three days, tops. I will be heading out to hunt down enemy parties with my men at dusk. That said, I cannot guarantee your people’s safety; not here, and not wherever they may go. All I can assure you is that I have men in the fields and men in the city, and they will do everything in their power to keep your people safe. At the moment, I would recommend you trust your own judgement more than mine”, she reported with calm voice.

“Thank you, General. We appreciate your honest words.”

“Likewise, ma’am. I have a question, though, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“Go ahead”, she invited her to speak.

“Why did you call me? Commander Ian here as the same information as I do. And he was already here”, she stared right at her, her eyes devoid of emotion.

“Well, I wanted to receive the report from the head of the chain of command to reassure my people”, the other answered slowly.

“I’ll let you know then, ma’am, that Commander Ian and I are at the same slab of said chain. We have the same training and have been working together since we graduated on Kamino. What I know, he knows; and what he knows, I know. I hope that gives us a way to get quicker responses if a situation like this ever arises. Farewell”, and she turned around and left.

“Dani”, Ian said once they were outside. “Dani, don’t vanish on me again.”

She stopped and turned to him, lifeless stare boring into him.

“Talk to me. What do you need to get better?”

“... I don’t know”, her voice broke. “I don’t know, Ian, I have tried to fix me but I can’t...”, her chest spasmed.

Ian hugged her shoulders and she grasped at his waist, breathing irregularly, doing her best to keep an anxiety attack at bay. But the feelings were not flowing as they should.

 

The fight ended abruptly: the last recon-droid taken down by a blaster shot.

“Good one, Bubble”, she nodded to the trooper. He nodded back and said nothing, but she could feel the pride emanating from him. “All right, gather up, we’re going back to base, catch some sleep—”

A sound she hadn’t heard in years caught her attention and she hushed abruptly, turning around in the direction of the tall weeds.

“Sir...?”

_Mee!_

Everybody heard that, and the troopers rose their blasters.

“No, no”, Dani soothed them. “It’s something small, it’s not dangerous...”

“With due respect, sir, there’s plenty of small things out there that can and will kill us”, Apollo refuted.

“Not this one”, she replied softly, and walked to the vegetation, stance completely relaxed as she pushed the leafs aside to walk through them.

Her men followed her, still on alert and ready to cover her if it was a trap.

It wasn’t.

Dani stopped, looking down at the ground. Bubble and Feather leaned over her shoulders to look.

A loth cat kitten was meowing and pressing itself against what was, without any doubt, its mother’s corpse. Luna crouched down slowly, and the clones lowered their blasters.

“Poor thing...”, Feather sighed.

Dani started making sounds at it and saying words in unknown languages for the clones. The kitten noticed their presence and hissed at them. She extended a hand towards it and it clawed at her skin, but lost balance and fell.

“It’s very young”, she mused.

“Sir, I’m giving you a rabies vaccine after that...”, Apollo grumbled.

“Okay”, she just said, and shifted closer to the kitten.

It kept meowing angrily and trying to bite and claw. Dani did her best to avoid anything pointy and gave it gently strokes when she could, trying to calm it down. Eventually, it stopped resisting and she picked it up carefully, inspecting it.

“She’s grey, like my morals. That will be her name: Grey”, she declared, and tucked her close to her chest.

Luna turned around to face her men.

Bubble was snorting loudly and doing his best to contain laughter, Apollo was digging around his backpack, probably looking for the promised vaccine, and Feather was staring at the tiny loth cat.

“...Can I pet her?”

“Yes.”

He tenderly stroke Grey’s back. Dani realised he hadn’t taken off his gloves to pet her, so he probably wasn’t really feeling the softness of her fur.

“You’ll be able to pet her better when we are back on the ship.”

He stopped to look at her.

“Are you really keeping her, sir?”

“Yeah.”

“Is Commander Ian going to be okay with that?”, Bubble asked slowly.

Dani didn’t reply immediately, and she spaced out for a second.

“He will.”

 

“Look, Ian.”

The Commander did not expect to see what he saw when he turned around at his General’s call.

“What’s that?”

“A loth cat.”

“Yes, I know it’s a loth cat. What I’m asking is: why are you holding a loth cat kitten?”

“Her mother is dead and she was alone in the fields. I have named her Grey and I want to keep her.”

Ian stood silent for a moment.

“Dani...”, he sighed.

“I need her!”, she said quickly, and there was desperation in her eyes. “For therapeutic reasons”, she added with calmer voice.

He perked up.

“It’s making you feel better?”

Luna nodded.

His stance relaxed a but, but he still seemed dubious about the situation.

“What are you going to feed her with?”

“I can afford cat food. I’ll give her part of my rations until we make a stop somewhere and I will sneak out to shop for what she needs.”

“Yes, about what she needs: where will she do her necessities?”

“The Greenhouse”, she answered without missing a beat.

“And where we’ll she be on the ship?”

“The Greenhouse.”

“Who’s going to take care of her when you are not there?”

“Maintenance crew or troopers off-duty.”

Ian deflated. Those were actually quite good answers.

“Do you want to pet her?”, Dani offered.

He looked down at Grey, sleeping in his General’s arms, and rose a finger to scratch her head softly.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?”, she asked after a while, voice low and devoid of second intentions.

Ian glanced at her peaceful expression as she watched the loth cat.

“Yes. Yes, it does.”

 

Grey was an absolute hit in _The Unruly_. Dani had traded her desserts for milk so she could feed the kitten. The first days, she had carried the loth cat everywhere to make sure she stayed in good health and to introduce her to the ship’s inhabitants. Last thing she wanted was someone dumping Grey into space because they thought she had sneaked on-board.

So Luna showed off the loth cat to anybody who laid eyes on her, and they told their friends about the animal, and in this fashion the whole ship knew about their new crewmate in the span of a day. The General taught Grey to do her necessities on the soil of the Greenhouse, a reconditioned warehouse where now she grew tangerines, apples, and some other fruits the troopers collected on their travels. The room itself was unofficial and probably illegal, but nobody had told the Admiral about it and everybody else was allowed to go there and chill, plus the supply of fresh fruit and other vegetables it offered, so it was a well-kept secret. Grey herself seemed to enjoy running among the vegetation and climbing up the trees, much to Dani’s dismay and anxiety.

When she grew enough to not be stomped to death, Luna allowed her to roam free. Most of the time she followed Dani or went off to the Greenhouse, but the loth cat had started to ditch her in favour of going to the barracks for a never-ending petting session.

Moral in the 0th had never been so high. Grey Moral, to be precise.

Nobody had any major complaints about the animal. She was forbidden to enter the medbay and the hangar; the first for hygienic reasons, the later for Grey’s safety and the sake of the mental health of whoever might squash her on accident.

But even with that restriction, medics were all too happy of having her around.

Clone patients were often restless and tended to fall into depressive states when bedridden, in great part because of the relative solitude of the medbay and the lack of activity (and the fact that they had been conditioned to relate inactivity to uselessness, ergo, decommission or reconditioning, but she wasn’t going to call them out on that when it wasn’t their fault). But place a loth cat on their laps, and _ole!_ Problem solved. Now the patients were busy petting Grey and fighting for her attention.

Literally everybody was head-over-heels for the animal: now all transports sported Grey in a cute or feral pose, and it was becoming rarer and rarer to see somebody without loth cat markings on their armour.

The day she walked onto the bridge to curl up on a naval officer’s lap and Admiral Kasta stared at her, everybody stared back.

He looked away and went on with his duties, but Dani saw him petting her when he thought nobody was looking.


	14. The jig is up, starring the 501st

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ilegal things and Mamma Mia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> High levels of sassiness

“We need you to pick up the 501st.”

“Did they blow up ANOTHER Star Cruiser?”

“Yes.”

“Roger roger.”

And that’s pretty much how the calls between the Jedi Council and the 0th went.

 

On normal occasions, the fact that they would be hosting another Battalion would only mean that they needed to unlock the spare barracks and break off the emergency rations.

For the 0th it meant hiding everything that was outside regulations: and that included the Greenhouse, several critical papers about the Republic’s politics that were placed in a multitude of lounges, and about twenty people marked as MIA or KIA who were awaiting the next shipment to Separatist space. Signs reading “Maintenance Personnel only” were placed on the doors of all important/illegal rooms to dissuade any newcomers from entering.

Ian tried to convince his General to hide Grey too, but she was very stubborn and swore she would fight anyone who tried to take the loth cat away from her. He didn’t doubt it. He just didn’t get why she didn’t want to just avoid the confrontation altogether. It’s true Dani was always calmer when the cat was around, though.

So Grey was rubbing herself against Dani’s legs and climbing up Laa’ka’s armour to sit on his pauldron when the gunships carrying the 501st came in the hangar.

“—so I was sitting there, BBQ sauce on my titties...”, she made sure to say when Anakin could hear her, and she turned away from Laa’ka and Ian to smile to the newcomers as if nothing had happened, “Welcome to The Unruly!”, she waved cheerfully, trotting to meet them halfway.

She barely restrained a snort at Skywalker’s face and Captain’s Rex irradiated incredulity and unnerved confusion.

She found that hilarious.

“Thank you for having us, Dani”, Anakin said, regaining his composure. “This is Captain Rex”, he gestured to the man at his side.

She nodded slowly, turning to him: “A pleasure to meet you, Captain”, she offered a hand, voice soft and respectful to make up for the previous joke.

“Likewise, sir”, he was quick to shake her hand.

It was a calm gesture. He let Dani apply the force first, and he mimicked her brief pressure. More than a handshake, it had felt like a hug.

And the contact was over as soon as it had started.

“This is Ian!”, she continued, gesturing to her Commander as he approached.

“Sirs”, he nodded, hands clasped behind his back. The 501st officers nodded back. “Your accommodations are ready, if you’ll follow me...”

More men stepped outside the transports, and Dani felt a surge of tension. She turned her head to stare at two ARC troopers who had frozen looking at her. She tilted her head, not being able to see their faces since they were wearing their helmets, so she reached out to their Force-signals.

_The jig is up_

She turned to Laa’ka to see that he was already giving her a look. They looked away in unison.

“What was that?”, Anakin asked with a raised eyebrow, looking between them.

“What was what?”, Dani shrugged.

“You shared a look.”

“What can I say: there’s chemistry between us”, she said smugly, eyebrows bobbing up and down. But the surprise at her statement was turning into tension. She sighed deeply. “I’m kidding, Ani. I’m a lesbian”, and she turned around to walk away, making a gesture with her head for them to follow her. “Where’s your Padawan, anyways? When are you going to introduce her to me?”

“Ashoka is back in the Temple, tending to her studies”, he replied after clearing his throat.

“Good”, she nodded after a beat. She had heard great things about the Togruta and was a bit disappointed that she wasn’t there, but in the end the thought that she was away from the war won over.

“No flirting with her when you meet her”, he said as a playful warning.

“Tsk”, she voiced, her irritation at his statement quite obvious. “As if I would court a minor”, she grumbled.

“I didn’t meant to imply—”

“—I would court Senator Amidala, though”, she continued cheerfully, looking sideways at Skywalker, “But I heard she is already taken.”

“Oh”, he blurted out and went silent for a couple of seconds. “Is she?”

“Yeah. Some guy, she didn’t tell me much...”

“I see.”

“But she’s quite happy with him, so that’s good. I’m glad for them.”

“Than— That’s a very responsible way of taking it”, he corrected himself.

“Thanks! I’m proud of it! But if said guy ever ended up hurting her, in ANY way... and she asked me...”, she turned her head to look directly at him, “I wouldn’t hesitate to hunt the fucker down and brake his knees”, she completed with an amused smile.

“Uhu...”, he nodded slowly, keeping his eyes on her.

“Anyways! We have talked enough about my personal life! Now it’s your moral obligation to tell me about yours!”

“Hah! Good try, Luna. Good try”, he smirked, and she laughed it off. “Wwwwwwwhats with the Loth cat, by the way?”, he asked, thumb pointing at the animal sitting on Laa’ka’s shoulder.

“Oh, that’s Grey. She has a job here.”

“Does she?”

“Yeah.”

“Care to elaborate on that?”

“No.”

 

Once the 501st was somewhat settled, she took her working-datapad and went to the largest lounge room to write the daily report in the company of her men. Most people hated paperwork, but Dani enjoyed the quiet and calm of doing something that wouldn’t cause the death of good people if she made a small mistake. So the GAR High Council was quite pleased that she had her paperwork up to date, and she got to get creative about the reports (respecting the expected formality and grammar. Incredible, I know...).

She had spaced out for a while with the datapad on her lap when a few shadows loomed over her and she yelped, jerking back onto the couch.

“Hi”, she said, irritation fading. “Feel free to take a seat.”

Hardcase, Echo and Fives were standing around her, visibly nervous.

“Sir—“, Echo begun.

“What happens in 79’s stays in 79’s”, she said calmly, reviewing her last paragraphs. She couldn’t supress the amused snort when the clones sighed in relief. “But we may talk about it if it leaves you more at ease”, she added, turning off the screen and looking up at them.

When they decided to sit on the floor instead of the couch, she slipped down with them, knees bended but posture relaxed.

“So”, she clasped her hands. “Sorry I kinda lied when we met. I didn’t want to ruin the fun and I really like 79’s, that’s why I just say I’m a civilian when I go there. If somebody knows I’m a General it’s because they have met me on duty. And, well, my men obviously know who I am. The thing is: I won’t be telling your superiors that I met you in a bar. You do that if you want. Not my call to make.”

“Thank you, sir”, Hardcase breathed.

“No problem. Something you want to say?”

“Sorry that I flirted with you, ma’am. It was disrespectful of me”, Fives bowed his head slightly.

“Was it? I had a lot of fun”, Luna smiled with her head slightly tilted.

He seemed taken aback by that.

“See? That’s why I go to bars in incognito mode. We had a killer time and now you feel it was wrong because I’m your superior”, she crossed her arms, slightly upset. She sighed with resignation. “Please, don’t tell anybody in 79’s that I am a General.”

“We won’t, sir. Promise”, Echo said immediately, and the others followed.

“Thank you. Anyways, does somebody want to tell me how did you blow up your ship this time? Having leverage against Anakin is always nice”, she smirked, and now her behaviour was much more like the one she had displayed when they met.

“Well, technically, it was the Seps...”, Fives started.

“Technically”, she pointed out.

Hardcase shoved Fives aside, excitement radiation off his being, no doubt about to tell a story for the ages, when a buzz coming from one of Dani’s cargo pants’ pockets startled them.

“Sorry. It might be important”, she apologised meekly, fishing the phone out of the pocket.

It was a text from Shades, written with the Basic alphabet but reading words in Spanish:

_Need you in medbay to discuss possible treatment/transfer_

_Be there in 10_ , she replied quickly.

“Uf, sorry, I gotta go check for some final accommodations”, she said, grabbing her datapad and standing up. “Sorry to leave you hanging. Hope you have an okay stay, today’s there’s movie night after dinner and if you see weird stuff we’re just that way. Hope to see you around!”, she waved goodbye, already powerwalking out of the room.

Once she left the more crowded hallways behind, she Force-ran through the long empty corridors to one of the more unused lifts. Not that she was trying to be extra careful, she just liked having an erratic behaviour. Drew her supervisors nuts. Of course if they ever figured out she was doing it just to spite them her behaviour was everything but erratic.

She almost turned around when she saw a clone standing guard by the medbay's door, but he saw her before she could cloak herself.

“Dani Luna?”, he asked, and there was something like desperate hope in his voice.

“...Yeah”, she answered, walking and reaching towards him. “Hello, Jesse. What are you doing here? I just saw Hardcase and the others, they are—”

“I’m with Kix”, he said abruptly. “I— There’s— Shades said you might be able to help”, he finally blurted.

“Okay”, she nodded carefully. “Let’s get to it, then”, she gestured with her head, and Jesse entered before her.

“She’s here”, he called out, not quite yelling. Most of the injured of the 501st had already been properly treated and had been moved to recovery rooms, but there were still a couple of troopers receiving more intensive care, both heavily sedated, but it still felt wrong to raise one’s voice.

Jesse disappeared behind a light blue curtain.

Well, make that three troopers.

Shades said something but Dani’s focus was totally on the man lying still on the cot. She stepped carefully to the head of the bed and studied the face under the oxygen mask.

It was young. Too young to be there. No tattoos, no scars. Well, that was if you didn’t count the missing arm as a scar. She reached out with the Force, evaluating his body and soul: missing right arm and fractured ribs on the same side; and he... Oh, god, the fear, the pain that he had felt before passing out—

Dani gasped and stepped backwards, almost tripping and falling through the curtain, but Jesse caught her.

“Thanks”, she mused, a bit disoriented, and met his worried eyes.

She covered hers for a moment, taking a deep breath.

She rose her head and finally noticed that Shades hadn’t been alone in the space.

“Oh. Hi, Kix.”

“Dani”, Shades called, and she turned to him, still wobbling a bit. “You okay?”

“I’d like to sit down”, she admitted.

Jesse disappeared and came back with a stool.

“Thanks”, she mused, so relieved of having one less thing to worry about, even if that something was standing. “So”, she blurted, “Treatment or transfer?”, she asked, looking at her CMO.

Shades looked at Kix, who seemed confused.

“What do you know of the current situation?”, Dani asked carefully with a frown.

“...The kid... does not meet the requisites to be battle-fit. I don’t think the Kaminoans would even consider giving him a prosthesis or moving him to administration work. The only thing left to do is marking him for decommission, but... Shades said you might be able to help”, the medic explained, pain-filled eyes with barely a spark of hope.

“Don’t mark him for decommission, then”, the General said.

“Can you heal him?”, Jesse asked hopefully.

“No. I mean, I could help with his ribs, but I can’t regrow his arm”, she gestured.

“W-What do you mean? How are you going to help, then?”, Kix asked, wrestling to keep calm.

“Easy, brother”, Shades mused soothingly, resting a hand on his back. “I think we all should take seats.”

Dani nodded and went to fetch them herself, feeling better from the emotional shock. She could feel that the waiting was only making the men more nervous, but rushing wasn’t going to help, either.

“As I see it”, she said once they all had stools. “There’s this two options: you transfer him to the 0th and I keep him with me ‘til we go back to Coruscant, once there I get him a prosthesis and treatment for as long as he needs, and when he is ready I send him back to you. Or: you mark him as KIA and I sneak him away from the GAR”, she ended, clasping her hands in front of her mouth, waiting for their reaction.

The 501st men startled minutely at the last part and shared a look.

“What do you mean—“, Kix began.

“It means exactly what it means: I either sneak him so he can get a treatment that will be considered illegal and returned to you, which, by the way, has all the numbers for you to get caught and court-martialled, because let’s be real, I’m going to be scolded at worst; or I send him away to a place where he will be able to heal from the trauma and not place a foot on an active battlefield ever again without this implying that he is going to get EUTHANIZED AGAINST HIS WILL”, she snarled lowly.

Shades sighed softly at Kix’s and Jesse’s astonished silence.

Nobody said anything for a while, just giving them time to think.

“...What are the chances that it goes accord plan?”, Kix asked in a whisper.

“High. Not infallible, but high”, Dani replied immediately.

A beat of silence. “Alright. I’ll mark him as KIA.”

“Kix!”, Jesse startled. “What if they catch you! What if this is a trap? What if she just wants to sell his organs? You just can’t agree to do this, you’ll get terminated too!”

“I would NEVER”, she snarled, but when they turned to her her eyes were full of pain, “We’re all in a compromised position already”, Luna breathed slowly. “I understand that we have only met once before, so I offer you a secret of mine for you to use against me if something goes wrong, with the hopes to quell your fears and have a solid base to build up trust.”

Nobody said anything, so she started digging around her pockets until she found her only printed photo.

“This is me with my parents, ten years ago”, she explained as she handed them the picture.

Their eyes went wide with shock, quickly darting towards her and back at the image.

“Oh, kriff”, Jesse muttered.

“ _Holy_ kriff.”

She extended her hand, quietly asking to have it back. Jesse complied and Dani took it, staring at it for a moment. She let out a shaky breath and pocketed it again. When she met their eyes, Kix and Jesse were staring at her as if she were some kind of wonder.

“I hope this helps to convince you”, she tried to smile, but she wasn’t quite in the mood. “Shall we proceed? If you want to back down, now is the moment.”

“I’m in”, Kix nodded.

“Me too”, Jesse clenched his fists nervously.

“Alright. Is it safe to wake him up?”, she asked, looking between Shades and Kix.

“It will be the first time he is conscious since coming in. Shock is expected”, her CMO reported.

“He knows us, sir. I think it would be better if Jesse and I are here to explain the situation.”

“I agree”, she nodded. “Do you want me here?”

“We’ve got this, Dani. Thanks”, Shades dismissed her.

“Alright.”

She patted her pockets and took out a small notebook and a pen, scribbling quickly.

“What’s his name?”, she asked without looking up.

“Sea”, Jesse replied quietly.

He tried to peek on what she was doing, but he had never seen the alphabet she was using.

“Alright. I’ll do my best to arrange a safe exit for him ASAP”, she sighed, already making plans on how to contact Naai’na’ra and standing to leave. “Thank you for the trust you are placing on us. We’ll look after him”, she promised, giving a reassuring smile.

“Wait!”, Kix called out before she could leave. “I— Can I send you more people? If the situation arises?”, he asked, that restricted hope back in his eyes.

Shades and Dani blinked at each other.

“Would you be willing to be our link to the 501st, brother?”, Shades asked. “We weren’t going to ask you and put you in this position. But...”

“I’m a medic. I’m supposed to save lives, not send them to be ended when there’s no real need to”, he spat, breathing harshly.

The General and the CMO exchanged another look.

“Fine by me”, Shades shrugged.

“Alright”, Luna nodded. “But we have to establish rules. The flow of people can’t be too great or somebody will notice. I’ll make you a chart with the language we use for this operations so we can communicate safely. I’ll think about it and get back to you. I also have to tell Ian...”, she started mussing and made to leave, but stopped suddenly and turned to them. “Oh, yeah! I might as well give you my personal phone number: texts for updates, calls for Emergency Extractions only, okay?”, she said as she introduced her number on Kix’s wristcomm, “Be careful anyways, you never know who is listening. That’s what the foreign language is for, though, so try to make sure nobody gets your chart and burn it once you have learned everything on it. And I think that’s it for the moment. Text me if something comes up”, she waved, turning away.

“Wait”, Kix called again, and Dani had to supress a sigh as her anxiousness escalated, now that she had her hands full. “Can I pass the word to other CMOs?”

“Uf”, she voiced, raising an eyebrow at Shades. He didn’t look convinced either. “Well, that has its ups and downs, and right now we are not ready for the possibility of receiving men from various battalions, plus the need to trust our contacts...”

“They will all feel the same way as I do”, Kix said, voice grave.

“And I don’t doubt that”, Dani replied quickly. “But will their superiors? Their friends? Eventually expanding our reach is the logical course of action, but we are not ready for it yet. You want to try and ease people into the idea? Fine by me, but don’t promise anything nor say anything compromising until we have talked about it”, she finished, crossing her arms.

“Damn, you really are all-business”, Jesse muttered.

“I have been planning all of this since I was seventeen, Jesse. This is important to me. I rather be a paranoid that have it all go to hell. Understand?”

“Yes, sir!”, they replied on instinct.

Luna sighed again, deflating. “Alright. Keep me updated, gentlemen. I’ll make sure somebody brings Grey over.”

 

She spent the afternoon in her room, working on the cheat sheet for Kix. Ian joined her later to discuss the new situation and the better way to direct it.

“When will you be able to contact Naai’na’ra?”

“Depends on if we can make a stop on a planet where she has one of her contacts. Sometimes it really sucks that we have to be so careful: what I would give to have her frequency right now...”

“We’ll have to replenish supplies, since we are feeding our guests and the 501st.”

“Yeah, that makes for a good excuse”, she nodded, and bolted upright to dig around her closet, pulling out a panel on its floor to pick up a small but bulky device with a small screen and two buttons. She pushed the first, scrolling through the list it displayed. “Looks like there is someone on Saleucami. We’ll be dropping the 501st before getting there and it’s on our way to our next objective, so I think we can pull it off.”

“That’s settled, then”, he nodded, but there was something wrong.

Dani frowned.

“Are you... angry at me?”, she asked slowly.

“I’m upset, Dani”, he nodded, looking straight at her eyes.

She flinched at the admission, eyes darting as she thought about the cause.

“It’s because I pulled Kix into the fray without telling you first?”, she tried.

Ian nodded again.

“I’m sorry”, she said, visibly ashamed. “I came into the medbay and I immediately checked for Sea’s emotional state and after that... after that I was too shook to think about something that wasn’t getting him to safety as quickly as possible. But that’s no excuse, and you are right, and I’m really sorry: you are my partner and we are equals and I should have told you. I’m very sorry. I’ll do better next time”, she ranted, looking at him and waiting for his reaction.

The Commander sighed. “I’m going to pay him a visit anyways so I can form my opinion on him”, he said, picking up his mug of caf.

“Of course”, Dani nodded. “I’m sorry”, she repeated, voice low.

“I know, kid. I know.”

 

They had quite a normal meal with Anakin and Rex, Ian nudging her every now and then to keep her awake.

“That busy have you been?”, Skywalker teased.

“Nah, it’s the stress of thinking that the ship is about to spontaneously combust at any moment that is killing me”, she shot back, eyes narrowed.

“You remind me of Obi-Wan.”

“What are you saying? We’re nothing alike! I don’t have a beard! And if I had it I would wear it better.”

“I’m going to tell him you said that”, he snorted.

“Do it then. His sassiness has nothing to do against my absurdity”, she shrugged.

“I have competitions with Cody to see who has to withstand more bullshit”, Ian mused, and Rex snorted loudly.

“Oh, I’d win that”, he nodded absentmindedly.

Dani laughed in silence as Ian pulled out a datapad, adding a third column and writing Rex’s name on top of it, right beside the one’s that read _Ian_ and _Cody_.

“Do your worst, brother. Let’s see what you have.”

The Captain picked it up and read through the lists first, snorting every know and then. Anakin tried to peek over his shoulder but Dani catapulted protein goo at him with a spoon.

“Hey!”

“Stop being nosey”, she said, preparing her next shot.

“You have barely eaten”, he noticed, scooping some of his own goo and getting in position to counterattack.

“You fool. I was saving ammunition”, she replied without looking up. The so-called food splashed inside Anakin’s water, and the Jedi gave her an annoyed look.

“That’s totally, like, 100 points”, Dani stated while pushing her glass of water towards him in a quiet offering.

“Oh, you are on!”

“Children”, Ian mused, and Rex could only nod as he wrote his own experiences.

“How does this work? The one with the largest list wins?”, the Captain asked.

“Nah, it’s more about the quality of the experiences. We usually send it to Wolffe to judge that. But since he is carrying C3PO around he has been muttering a lot, so I guess that if he joins we will be sending it to Bly or Monnk.”

“If you are not careful all commanders under Jedi’s orders are going to end up in this list”, he shook his head despite the smile on his face.

“We could make a good book out of it when the war ends: _The Clone Wars: Jedi Bloopers_ ”, Ian announced dramatically, gesturing with his hands.

Dani howled in laugher beside him, dropping her spoon and sliding to the floor.

“Why are you so extra?”, Ian smiled down at her.

“Me? Extra? I’m the least extra person ever”, she refuted as she climbed back onto the seat. “You don’t see me waving my laser stick around.”

“Lightsaber”, Anakin corrected, but Luna paid him no mind. “Speaking of which. You and I. Sparing. Tomorrow.”

“No thanks.”

“Come on! How long since you duelled?”

“Since I almost kill Grievous.”

“Well, if you practise maybe you’ll be able to kill him next time!”

“You just want to show off. Say it. ‘I want to show off’. Come on. You can do it.”

“Alright: I want to show off. Happy? Let’s go to the training room, I’m itching for a—”

“No way, mate. It’s movie night. We’ll spar tomorrow, if _I_ have time.”

“You are younger than me, so how do you manage to act like an elder?”, Skywalker pouted.

“My ship, my _rulz_ ”, she stuck out her tongue to him, picked up her tray and left with a smug walking.

“Well, if you ever have to fetch a ride with us, I’ll keep you up all night!”, he shouted.

“That sounded horrible, Anakin!”, she shouted back, her laughter drowned among the others as half the mess-hall chocked on their goo.

 

“Options tonight are: _Mamma mia!, Space Jam_ and _High School Musical 2_. Who votes for _Mamma Mia!_?”

Lots of hands of the 0th raised up, but the members of the 501st kept their hands down, not knowing what they were voting for.

“ _Space Jam_?”

A few sparse hands, who’s owners earned looks and knowing smiles from their brothers.

“What? The soundtrack slaps!”, Pedal defended himself.

_“High School Musical 2?”_

More hands than _Space Jam_ , but less than _Mamma mia_.

“ _Mamma mia!_ it is”, she nodded, discarding the other boxes and walking to the device that had been armed in a combined effort of anybody who dared try to put something together to watch alien movies. Dani herself had spent hours creating the subtitles in Basic.

She set the movie and backed to the couches, but chose to grab a pillow and lay on the cold floor, close to other men resting their backs against their brother’s legs.

Usually, the 0th watched Dani’s movies in Spanish. It helped her men learn the language of their CLASSIFIED ops, or at least be familiar with it. But since they had guests, they played it with the English audio. At that point, Luna watched the movie just to see Earth’s landscape. It made her feel nostalgic, but the cheerful tone of the story always left her with a special warmth inside.

When _Mamma mia_ started playing some troopers stood up to dance, so Dani rolled to the spots left out by them to not disturb, cheering and clapping her hands to the beat. The song was barely ending when she took off her shirt and balled it up, stood as the others stepped aside and spun with her eyes closed. To the 501st surprise, their hosts crowded around her. The General threw the fabric blindly and watched as hands stretched to catch it. When a fist balled around it, everybody stepped away from it’s owner.

Dani smiled and pointed at him dramatically: “Thread is today’s DANCING QUEEN!!!”, she hollered as her men cheered.

They settled down marginally, waiting for the next song to start. They had done this hundreds of times already: and every time the Dancing Queen was a different person. Dani had been it the first time they had played the movie, encouraging everybody to join her and just mimicking the actors and singing quietly. Now all of them new the steps, some even improved, and they all pointed at Thread and sang _You are the dancing queen!_ as the 501st struggled to see the subtitles on screen to know what they were saying.

Once it was over, they cheered as they went to sit down again, and Thread returned Dani’s shirt. The movie went on, people singing their favourite parts in solos, duos or groups and enjoying the drama. The climax passed, the wedding took place and when it seemed the movie was over _Waterloo_ started playing. Luna jumped on her feet with six people more and started dancing chaotically, gesturing for the guests to join. Hardcase was quick to jump to her and copying her movements.

“Reminds me of 79’s!”, she laughed.

“Good times!”, he nodded. “Why does this not sound there?”

“I don’t have it in my phone and electronics hate me!”, she replied, and went on to sing to him: _Waterloo! I was defeated and you won the war!_

He glanced at the subtitles and snorted, replying with: _Wo-wo-wo-wo-Waterloo! Couldn’t escape if I wanted to!_

“Not bad!”, she smiled sincerely, spinning to play with a passing Bubble for a moment before returning to him.

Again, it seemed like it had ended.

“It’s not over yet!!!”, she exclaimed, and managed to make eye-contact with Echo, who had danced but had been standing pretty aside. She extended an arm towards him. “A slow dance, Echo?”, she asked with her head tilted, soft smile and eyes inviting but accepting of a refusal. Fives pushed his brother a bit.

“Alright, alright... But if I’m a disaster I’m bailing out”, he warned playfully.

“Oh, I will send you an evac, don’t worry”, she teased as she went to meet him, and guided his hands to rest on her hip and to other to join her own. “It’s pretty easy: one, two, three; see? Just a bit of swinging, I’ll be leading, give me a heads-up if you want to switch”, she explained quickly.

Echo was quick to catch the rhythm, and managed quite well to follow her steps without stepping on her. More couples swung slowly around them as Dani looked at him and sang: _So, I say, thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing, thank you for the joy they’re bringing—_

The ARC was torn into keeping his focus on her or craning his neck to read the lyrics and know what she was saying. Nobody had ever sang to him that way, but he felt it was an incomplete experience if he didn’t know what Luna was saying, so he chose the latter. She noticed that and stopped guiding him into spins so he could read comfortably. He shot her a smile and she smiled back, not stopping her singing for a second. He read until the lyrics repeated and then looked back at her, blinking for a moment in astonishment before giving it a try. Dani nodded encouragingly and pushed against him a bit, asking him to lead, too.

The song ended and so did the movie, and everybody cheered and clapped.

“That was fun”, Dani commented. “Hope you join me next time we meet at 79’s.”

“I hope so too, sir”, he smiled.

“Oh, please, I have been off-duty since three ours ago. Until 0600 I’m just Dani”, she offered.

“Well, Dani. I hope to dance with you again”, he corrected himself.

“ _Without a song, or a dance, what are we?”_ , she sang in reply, and waved goodbye as she skipped away.

He watched her go.

“Careful, brother, or we will have to pick up your jaw from the floor”, Hardcase teased.

“Hush. I think I just had a religious experience. Is this how Jedi feel when they commune with the Force?”

“Your crush will have to stay just like that, man. She’s a lady’s gal.”

“I would die for her.”

“I’m certain she wouldn’t want that”, Kix mused as he approached them.

“Hey, brother”, Fives greeted him, voice soft, “How are you holding up?”

“I’m... I’m fine”, he replied. “I missed the alien movie, huh? What was it about?”

“Oh, three guys find out that they have a daughter like, twenty years later, when she is about to get married. Can you imagine?”, Fives summered up nonchalantly.

Kix chocked on his own spit, leaning forwards to cough.

“Whoa there, vod!”, Echo patted his back softly. “Maybe we should head for the barracks. It’s been a long day”, he said, starting to guide him to the door.

“Don’t worry, mate!”, Hardcase snickered, “If you want to watch the movie, we’ll just have to make our next Star Cruiser explode and fetch another ride...”


	15. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 100% fluff

The day Sol’s daughter was born, he was ecstatic.

And so, so afraid.

The doctor handed him the crying burrito that was his child as they went on with the afterbirth. Sol stared at the tiny, ugly face with eyes wide in wonder, making an effort to press his lips and don’t let his insecurities slip. He stayed like that, holding the baby out of the medics’ way as she grew silent, feeling sorry for being too afraid of dropping their daughter if he dared spare a hand to hold Lian’s. His wife gave him a forgiving smile as the nurses helped her settle down. When the last of them turned to leave, Sol stepped towards the bed.

“How are you feeling?”, he asked softly.

“Impatient, dear”, she huffed. “I want to hold her.”

“Of course”, he sprung into action, lowering the precious package with infinite care and placing her in Lian’s arms.

“Hello, little Luna”, she cooed softly, tears in her eyes.

“She is very small”, he commented, worry badly masked.

“Hey”, she whispered, and she slipped a hand to hold his. “We went over this, remember? It’s completely normal for a birth. She will grow quite fast, you’ll see.”

“Not faster than me”, he huffed a laugh. “She is very still.”

“Yes, that’s normal too. The internal pregnancy is over, but now the external pregnancy begins. She won’t do much for a year, apart from eating, pooping and sleeping, but then she will start to crawl. She will start to talk. She will start to walk. And before we know it, we will be taking her to school.”

Sol knelt beside the bed, trying to get in a comfortable position to watch his family. The baby got restless and her arms jerked, fingers grasping the air in small twitches and face scrunched up before she started crying again.

“What’s wrong?”, he asked, jumping to his feet.

“She must be hungry”, Lian shushed him.

He sighed and made an effort to settle down. The man was starting to feel ashamed of being so on edge.

“Sorry. I’m being annoying.”

“No, Sol: you’re just being a worried father. It’s alright. We’ll work it out, yes? We’re going to be alright.”

Her voice didn’t fail to calm him down, sinking on the armchair next to the bed.

“Do you need anything? Water, a snack?”

“Water would be good”, she nodded.

Sol got up and went to dig around one of the bags they had brought from home. He was just grasping the plastic bottle when he heard Lian call his name in a shout-whisper.

“Sol! Sol, look, quick!”

He dashed for her wife and daughter, heart about to burst from his chest, hands gripping the corner between the small corridor entrance and the main room. But everything was fine. Lian was sitting up more than before, looking down at the baby in wonder and glancing up to Sol to gesture him to look closer.

“Come. Let your daughter see you”, she smiled warmly.

And he lurked closer, eyes widening as he got a better view. Lian lifted little Dani to him and he took her as if he were holding the cure to all evils, watching his eyes stare back at him.

“Hi, baby girl”, he cooed, and had to swallow to steady his voice. “I’m your dad...”

Sol rocked her gently and rose his gaze to look at Lian.

“She is beautiful...”

“Careful there, dear, or I might get jealous”, the woman teased as she brushed her brown hair aside and out of the way.

“What for? It’s obvious she’s got it from you”, he smiled back.

“Oh, give yourself some credit. I have done, like, 90% of the work, though. You know what? We’re fine.”

Sol huffed a laugh and glanced down at his now sleeping daughter.

“Do you want to hold her again?”, he asked softly.

“I’m tired. I think I will catch some sleep. Leave her on the crib, you should go and register her”, Lian mused, already settling down.

“Alright”, he replied, lowering Dani right next to her mother. “Be right back.”

“See you.”

Sol closed the door quietly and followed the instructions the nurses had previously given him.

“Good morning. I come to fill a birth certificate”, he greeted the receptionist.

“Sure. Fill those blanks and sign here, here and here. The mother will have to sign here, here, here and here. Congratulations, sir.”

“Thank you”, he nodded, giving a shinning smile.

He went over a free table, taking special care in his handwriting. It had taken him a couple weeks to learn the new alphabet and write in cursive, but he was satisfied with the swiftness he had achieved. He went back quickly to Lian’s room and awoke her briefly so she could sign the documents. Went he handed them back, the receptionist frowned.

“Sir, you haven’t wrote the baby’s forename...”

“I know”, he replied with a tiny smile. “She will chose it when she can. Until then, she’s just Luna.”

“Oh, I see! My apologies. Well then, you are set. Here’s your copy.”

“Thank you. Have a nice day.”

“Likewise.”

Sol walked back into the room to find his wife and daughter sleeping. He sat down on the armchair, eyeing the certificate between his hands, and leaned over his baby.

“Did you see that, little Luna? You are officially born.”


	16. Kamino III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter. Decided to split it in two. Part two is not written but eventually will.

She bounced back from the glass obstacle and kissed the floor. Again.

Her teammates laughed and she huffed in annoyance, but she couldn’t blame them. Dani stood up with a grunt, blushing from embarrassment.

“Go on with the circuit, Luna. You’ll try again later”, El-Les took pity on her, but that only annoyed her more.

Stupid hypothetic windows that they had to crush through...

Altered, she ran to the next obstacle. The alarm around her wrist beeped a warning, forcing her to concentrate on not enhancing herself subconsciously. Like, really? Where was that instinct when she was banging herself against a glass wall for five minutes?

Her hands were sweated and the robe slipped dangerously in her grasp as she climbed up a vertical wall. With an animalistic snarl she tugged hard and coiled it around her arms, huffing loudly at the effort.

“Go, Luna!”, she heard Cabur cheer, and the turmoil inside her eased a bit.

She reached the top of the wall and dropped at the other side, rolling as to not lose too much momentum. The Force-parkour training helped a bit with that, even if at that moment it was just plain parkour. She picked up a blaster placed on the floor and slid to cover as three droids were deployed and fire started raining on her. She checked the state of the weapon and the ammunition before crouching and pressing her side against the cover. Her aim wasn’t anything special, but at least she never shot blindly. The last one was giving her trouble and despite her best efforts she ran out of ammunition. She ducked, frown scrunched in annoyance. Dani could feel El-Les reaching for the controller to turn off the droid _Not yet, not yet, give me three seconds, just three seconds—_ but also heard the steps of the approaching machine. She took a rougher hold of the rifle and bolted up, smacking its head off as it went to loom over her. She didn’t even stay to watch where the head fell, just went straight for the sand pit.

By the time she ended the circuit she was panting hard, her whole being burning of effort and embarrassment as she eyed the offending glass wall.

“Have you been skipping gym sessions?”, the instructor asked.

“No, sir”, she replied between pants.

He scrolled through his datapad.

“And here it says that you are already at your body mass maximum that can be achieved without major procedures or drugs...”, he hummed.

Luna huffed, straightening. She wasn’t short by any means, the adult clones were only about ten centimetres taller than her; and she wasn’t skinny either, but beside the clones she looked so. The physical strength she had won had packed itself in the form of muscular density instead of a buffed look. Was that the reason she couldn’t brake the glass wall? How did physics work, again?

“Permission to work on the glass window scenario once the training is over, sir.”

“Denied. You’ll have your chance in a week. Pair up, troopers: we’re going to have two vs two matches before calling it a day.”

Dani turned away from El-Les without a word and went straight for Unruly, who met her half-way.

“Ready to kick some ass, even if you weren’t genetically engineered for it?”, he teased playfully.

“I’d wish I could kill somebody without consequences”, Dani deadpanned.

“Well, these blasters aren’t lethal but CT-6450 always makes for a good target”, he shrugged cheerfully.

Despite the fire still burning in her mind, she snorted.

They stuck together, like they always did when they managed to pair up and sprinted for the higher ground available. This time they weren’t fast enough to get the best spot, but it was a consolation that it had been seized by Zero and Cabur. It was going to be a friendly match.

Though Dani wasn’t much in a strategic mind setting: she was leaning towards obliterating the rivals and she would have ran out of cover if Unruly hadn’t seized her belt and pulled her back. Twice.

“Somebody’s altered”, he mused to her.

Luna scowled, not able to deny it and knowing she would feel guilty about it if she snapped at him.

“I understand. I know it’s hard to tell now because I’m awesome, but I used to mess up a lot in training too when I was younger”, he nodded along, making a pause to peek over the cover and shoot. A pained shout reached their ears not even a second later. “You know what always managed to cheer me up? Hacking or busting locks. So once we are done here I’m going to teach you how to do that.”

“Really? What if they catch us?”

“Well, nobody as found me out so far!”

“How did you learn to do that, anyways? Is there a theft class I skipped?”, she asked, eyes trained on the sign Unruly was doing and getting up to lay cover fire for him.

“There’s a tech specialisation where you learn to hack stuff in general, but I didn’t get picked for it. It was more of a trial-and-error thing”, he shrugged as they ducked back.

“Impressive”, she smiled.

“I know, right?”, he bobbed his head dramatically, earning a sincere laugh from Dani.

They were just getting their bearings to try and push on the attack when Zero and Cabur flanked them. Unruly and Dani startled and trained their guns on them too: she pointing at Zero, who pointed at Unruly, and he aiming at Cabur, who pointed at Dani; all frozen in a crossed fashion.

“Feel free to surrender”, Zero said smugly.

They exchanged a half a second glance, no words needed, and pulled their triggers. Zero and Cabur pulled theirs on reflex.

“Congratulations, you are all dead”, El-Les said through the speakers in the room.

Dani jumped on her feet and threw her hands in the air with a cheer, making her partners snort or shake their heads, if not both.

“Would it have killed your ego if you lost?”, Zero teased, but there was real annoyance in his voice.

“No”, Dani admitted, “But you know what they say: fake-die big or go home”, she shrugged as she left the training blaster in its place, already reaching to take off her helmet.

“Never heard that.”

“Rejoice, you are the first to do so.”

“Want to hang out in the lounge once we are done?”, Cabur proposed lightly as they settled to watch the next match.

“No can do: I’m borrowing Dani”, Unruly piped up.

“Huh. What for?”

“Aw, Cabur, I can’t lie to you”, he smirked, and promptly turned away without another word.

“He wants to try to cheer me up because I couldn’t brake the glass wall”, she explained. And it was not a lie.

“Oh, yeah, it must have been quite a blow”, Zero snickered.

“ _A_ blow? More like twenty! It was so embarrassing...”

“Hush, troopers! You might learn not to die by watching your squadmates!”

“Yessir!”, they all replied.

They did observe the tactics used, but Dani was SO bored. She couldn’t wait to sneak out and learn to pick locks with Unruly. Finally somebody would teach her something useful!

Despite the excitement, her eyes gravitated towards the fake window, and her mood plummeted again. Unruly had to nudge her when the instructor called them to formation before dismissing them for the day. She huffed at the obstacle yet again, but then her friend grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her out of the room, ripping off his helmet with his free hand and giving her a breath-taking smile. She let her eyes wide at the warmth irradiating from the clone, and hurried to take off her helmet too so he could see her smaller, but not less emotional smile.

“Okay, I just need to pick up something from by bunk, come!”, he said, dragging her towards the barracks.

“Wait, wait!”, she called as she planted her feet, trying to slow him down. “I think I’m not supposed to go in there...!”

Unruly turned with a raised brow, but relaxed his grip on her so she could slip away, and stopped beside the entrance.

“Has somebody explicitly told you not to enter?”

“No? But they gave me a room of my own, and that’s like the only space you have all for yourselves! I don’t want to intrude.”

He considered her a moment before snorting.

“Please. As if that could hold your curiosity down...”

And walked inside the barracks.

Dani stood there, dumbfounded for five long seconds before narrowing her eyes, because yes, okay, that was a good point, but she still felt like she shouldn’t go in there, but fuck, what did the barracks look like? Did she really want to know?

The thought wasn’t over and she had already walked in.

She had the decency of having the posture of somebody who is where they aren’t supposed to be: with cautious steps and head turning quickly at any sound or movement. Her eyes slipped upwards, towards the high ceiling and the colossal wall littered with circumferences. She saw somebody climbing up a ladder and pushing a button. She flinched a bit when the circle emerged from the wall, revealing that it was a tube. The clone sat on top of it while chattering with his partners.

_Oh god they sleep in niches_

The sprout of mild panic she felt could have grown worse if she didn’t feel Unruly’s presence around the corner of the wide corridors between lockers right below the tubes. Dani walked straight to him, swiftly dodging other clones that stared as she passed by.

“So? What’s your verdict on our accommodations?”, he asked teasingly, peeking out of what she supposed to be his locker; but all the smugness and playfulness fell away when he saw her greatly disturbed face and rigid stance. “Hey. What’s the matter?”, he muttered, glancing around to check their surroundings for eavesdroppers or whatever was altering her.

“Nothing”, she croaked, shifting her weight from one leg to the other.

Unruly crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.

“Nothing!”, she insisted.

He didn’t move an inch.

“It’s a meaningless thought it won’t contribute to anything!”

“It’s the bunks? What’s up with them?”, he pressed slightly, his expression relaxing in an attempt to dissipate the unsettling ambient that had settled itself around her.

Dani pressed her lips. She wanted to yell at him to quit it and leave her alone, but the outcome of that would probably be her storming out of the room and missing the picking locks lesson only to close herself in her room to think about what a shitty day it was being and how she made it worse.

So she took a deep breath and did an effort to take any bitterness off her voice.

“It looks like a burial site and it unnerves me that you guys have to sleep in isolated tubes, okay? It’s just that”, she didn’t quite succeed, and hoped that his friend wouldn’t take offense in it.

“Do you... need to get out of here?”, he asked slowly.

Luna took a step backwards, looking around and evaluating the room and herself.

“...As long as we are doing something, no.”

“Well, then!”, he nodded, showing her what he was holding in his hands and magically exorcising the bad mood. “Then get ready, because I’m going to teach you how to pick MY lock!”

“Really?”, she blurted, slightly taken aback.

“Well, I already broke into your room, so that’s the best I can do so we are even”, he laughed nervously.

Dani snorted loudly. “Yeah, alright, I feel you.”

“Alright”, he cleared his throat, shifting into teacher mode and closing his locker with a slap. “First of all—”.

 

“—and the damn glass didn’t brake”, Dani complained, cheek resting on a hand as her legs swung from the windowsill.

“Did you slow down when you were approaching?”, 99 hummed as he kept mopping.

“No! Well, maybe the first two times I did, but then I was going full bird on that, as if the window didn’t even exist!”

“I have never seen a bird”, he commented.

She jerked at that.

“Never?”

“Never.”

99 heard a rustle and turned around to see Dani with a flat device in her hands.

“What’s that?”

“My phone.”

“I thought you weren’t allowed to take your things out of your room.”

“I’m not! But if nobody sees me, then it’s not illegal!”, she beamed at him, and kept tapping and scrolling at the screen.

He huffed a laugh and shook his head, but before he could go on with his work Dani was beside him, eyes still trained on the phone.

“I have found you some bird pictures”, she said before turning the screen to him. “I had never seen this one before either. I would gladly show you birds from my planet but they are not on the holonet. So I guess we will both be discovering things today”, she hummed and shifted so she could see too.

99 did keep cleaning and Dani followed suit to show him every nice picture she found.

“See this beak? This one probably eats insects. This one’s tail is very long so probably it lives in dense forests. Long tails give good manoeuvrability. This one can extend these feathers, so my guess it’s that it’s for a mating ritual? It could be something else. Oh, this one looks a bit like a hummingbird! They eat nectar from flowers— oh, it says here that these drink blood. Never mind.”

“I need to move to the next area”, 99 rushed when there was a pause in Dani’s rambling.

She just stood up and followed him, now raising her head every now and then to check that there weren’t too many witnesses of her using her phone. She really should think of an alibi in case somebody called her out on it...

“You know a lot about birds”, he commented with a tiny smile.

“Yes! I love nature and evolution and all. I used to think that I would become a biologist when I was younger...”

“What changed?”

“...Everything”, she mused quietly. “But hey, it’s not that bad!”, she quickly added when 99 turned to look at her. “If things hadn’t changed, I would still be on Terra and I wouldn’t have the chance to study so much biodiversity! It’s not exactly what I had planned, but I can’t complain either.”

“Guess we have had to make due with what we got, huh?”

Now it was Dani who turned to look at him, unsure as what to say. She was torn between comforting and asking, and ultimately words failed her all-together.

“...Yeah...”, was all she got to say as a weight settled on her chest, mortified at the thought of not being able to do more. “...Is there any other animal that you’d like to see?”

“Hm... How about a nexu?”

“Never heard of that”, she commented as she tapped at the screen.

“I’ve heard they are quite intimidating.”

“That’s an understatement”, she said as she turned the device to him. “Like. WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT. It looks like a the bastard spawn of a tiger, a spider and a shark!”

“Never seen any of those, so I’ll take your word for it.”

Dani was about to launch herself into descriptions of said animals when wailing echoed through the hall and her mouth shut.

“What’s that”, she asked to the air, the Force, herself; already taking a step towards the source.

“We are near the nursery, so it’s probably a tubie— Dani— Dani, where are you going?”

“To check it out”, she answered without turning around, powerwalking along the corridor.

She heard 99 following her, but didn’t find it in herself to wait. The wailing didn’t falter, neither did her steps as a large window allowed her to see inside the nursery, built continuous to the hallway. A droid hovered to the crying baby, and seemed to check him up before setting him down again and hovering away, but the baby was still crying.

“Hey!”, she called out, tapping at the glass. “The kid is still distressed!”, she yelled at the droid.

It turned lazily to her.

“CT-9543 is healthy, clean and fed”, it said in a monotonous voice, and hovered away.

She grumbled at the droid and walked over the door as 99 reached her.

“I don’t think you have clearance to be in there”, he pointed at her fingers, already introducing a code.

“Probably. But you know who I bet has? Shaak Ti”, she deadpanned as the doors opened with a swish.

“How did you—”

“She trains me, I memorised her code”, she replied as she entered the nursery.

99 did not follow her, choosing to stay at the window, and the door closed behind her. The air was a tad cooler there, probably by the lack of human activity. She watched the babies on their tiny cribs as she made her way to the crying one. It was amazing that it hadn’t spread to the others.

The droid did not react to her presence in any way, so Dani just turned to the kid and loomed over him.

“Hey there, fella”, she spoke softly, reaching for him.

She was a bit rusty on holding babies, not to say that she hadn’t held a baby in her whole life, but it couldn’t be that hard, right? Babies are supposed to be light, so just be careful and support the neck and head and don’t let the baby slip from your grasp, yeah.

“I’m doing my best, you know? Bare with me, please”, she spoke to him once she had a firm grasp on him, and started rocking him gently. “The droid says you are okay, so what is it? Do you want somebody to hold you, like this?”

The wailing subsided a bit, but he was still whining restlessly.

“Oh, yeah, hard to make small talk with a cutie like you... Uhm... How about a lullaby? I... don’t think I remember any lullabies... _Twinkle, twinkle little star_? Don’t ask me why, but I always hated this one...”

She readjusted her grip on the baby, cradling him closer and planting a soft kiss on his head as she thought of an alternative. After a minute of thinking and rocking, she cleared her throat:

_Now, I’ve heard there was a secret chord_

_That David played and it pleased the Lord_

_But you don’t really care for music, do you?_

_..._

It was the most calming song she had been able to think about, Force bless Leonard Cohen and most versions of his work.

_..._

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_..._

The crying was turning to quite sniffs and the occasional hiccup.

_..._

_You saw her bathing on the roof_

_Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya_

_She tied you to a kitchen chair_

_..._

The baby opened his eyes, his gaze drifting to her face, and he blinked up at her. Dani smiled at him and went on singing:

_..._

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_..._

Dani kept singing and rocking softly, growing slower and slower. She couldn’t help it and booped his nose. Before she could retract her hand, he caught it between his chubby fingers. Well, he caught a finger, to be precise. He tried to take it to his mouth and Dani had to squirm her way out of his grasp, praying that that wouldn’t upset him and making him cry again. His hands flailed and he made a small distressed sound, but she pressed a kiss on his forehead and he settled down.

_..._

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

The song ended softly, the baby already sleep in her arms, softly drooling on her red shirt.

“Wasted”, she snorted to herself, and swiftly placed him back on his crib before the jerking of her laugh woke him up.

She leaned on the crib, watching him sleep with infinite tenderness in her eyes, and would have stayed like that if not for the tapping on glass that startled her.

99 looked distressed as he pointed repeatedly to his left. Dani perked up and jogged to the door. It swished close behind her and she came to a total halt as the Kaminoan Guard patrol turned around the corner.

“—I have seen loth cats and I’m not impressed. I’m telling you: Terran cats are WAY more elegant. What’s with loth cat’s stick legs? How do these support the ESPHERIC head?”, Dani spoke as if they had where deep in conversation.

“Well, until I don’t see a terran cat, then my opinion still is that loth cats are cuter.”

“I suck at drawing animals but I will try to draw you one just to change your mind”, she went on as they walked past the patrol, giving a lazy salute and turning around the corner.

“Have you ever had a pet?”

“I did have a cat.”

“Ah, so that’s it”, he smirked.

Dani snorted and glanced back. “Thanks for the heads-up”, she whispered gratefully.

“Anytime”, he nodded. “You are quite good with kids”, he commented.

“Am I? I was panicking, like, 85% of the time”, she giggled nervously.

“What did you sing to him?”

Dani froze for a second.

“Wow. I suddenly can’t tell what _Hallelujah_ is about. It’s... it’s about love. But not a love song, per se, I think... I think it’s an attempt at describing what love is. _It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah_ ”, she translated for him. “That’s the last verse.”

“What is an _Hallelujah_?”

“An expression of worship or rejoicing.”

“I thought love was warm and made you feel complete”, 99 hummed.

“Well. It does. But that’s only a part of it. Life is never that easy. And nothing lasts forever. My parents loved me and everything was wonderful, then they went away and the cold was left. Doesn’t mean it’s still like that, tho. I’m starting to feel the warmth again.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah. Hallelujah.”

 

“So the question here is: what does it take to blow up a window with the Force?”, Dani asked with hands raised and spread, as if holding Shaak Ti where she was.

“Not much. Since it is only glass, you can afford to be rough with it. Just be mindful of shrapnel”, she hummed.

“Alright. Alright, yeah, that can make up for my issue, right?”

“It does. In the field. But if your training requires that you brake the window with only your body, that’s what you must do.”

Luna said nothing to that, only frowned and looked away in a burst of anger and frustration.

“There is something I would like to ask you, if I may”, the Jedi spoke softly.

Dani’s gaze returned to her face, now taken over by curiosity.

“Sure. Shoot.”

“Force-healing is a rare ability”, she began. “So rare, in fact, that I can’t teach you much about it. If you wanted to improve your skills on that field, the best place to do so would be the Jedi Temple.”

“Yeah. I was told so”, she replied emotionlessly.

“Now, you did study for some time there. And I have read the reports on your progress. It’s... fascinating, to say the least. I was hoping you could tell me how you do it, so I may learn from you”, she spoke with her monotone and unnervingly calm voice.

Dani considered her for a moment.

“How I heal with the Force?”, she crossed her arms and rose an eyebrow.

“Yes.”

She stared in the distance, making an effort to put emotions in words.

“Do you ever see someone suffering,”, she swallowed abruptly. “and you can’t stand it?”

Shaak Ti blinked in surprise.

“I—”

“Do you ever see someone crying and you would hold them until they fall asleep? Do you ever see someone, face scrunched up in pain because a gut ache and you would tear out your own with your bare hands to give it to them? Do you ever see SUFFERING and can only think of how to OBLITERATE it? Wouldn’t you give it all, if doing so meant that nobody would feel despair ever again?”

Dani spoke with emotion, her eyes wet and staring into the void and breath fast and deep as she poured what she considered a vital part of her being out. But she didn’t give Shaak Ti a chance to answer:

“When someone hurts, and I can give, I do. I— The Force-healing— I do draw power from the Force. But I have to give a piece of myself first. Energy. Life-force. Whatever. I pass it and I enhance it with the Force and most wounds heal, or the person feels comforted. But if I only pour Force into somebody, nothing happens. It flows but it does nothing. So, that’s it. That’s how it works for me.”

She ended, now calmer.

“That’s a dangerous way, Dani”, the Jedi said softly.

“It works. And it’s faster than the orthodox way. So I don’t really care”, she shrugged, avoiding eye-contact.

“I see. I will reflect about your words”, the togruta nodded.

 

Luna stumbled inside her room and hurriedly picked up her phone from the desk before dropping on the bed, groaning softly as the strain was taken out of her back and spine, and quickly scrolled through the contacts.

_I’m fucked I’m fucked I’m fucked I’m fucked_

The call ringed, and finally the other picked up.

“Heeeeeeeeyyyyyyyy, Yaddle!”

“Call me anymore, you don’t!”, she grumbled. “News on you I was expecting. Too long it has been. You have been good, yes? Made friends have you?”

“Sorry, sorry, I have been running around and forcing myself to socialize—”

“—Good, Good—”

“—yeah, I have been fine... we should have a holochat so you can see me: I’m pretty buffed now—”

Yaddle giggled.

“—and yeah, I have been eating, despite the occasional mystery slime they feed us—”

“—Heard that field rations, sickening are. Reason why refused to be a General, it is—”

“—I already told you about the Tongue-Batch, right? Good kids, I don’t see them as often and it’s a pity... I try to visit them as often as possible because I know latter it will be even harder to make time... There’s also Unruly; don’t tell anybody but he taught me to pick locks and it rocks! I really like him. I hope I can take him with me when we graduate...”

“A General you will be, then. Your word, its weight will have”, Yaddle hummed. “How’s Force training, hum? Learnt something interesting?”

“Been practicing duelling and cloaking the most. My Force-parkour is quite smooth, but I won’t be able to say for sure until I’m able to test it on the field, since I’m forbidden to use the Force in public and all... Haven’t practised much Force-healing, since that implies having to ask for permission to enter the medbay, but doing so alone, and I don’t know, it feels like overstepping A LOT of bounds...”

“I see. Think of a way for you to practise safely, I will.”

“Maybe it won’t be necessary, since eventually I will get in medic training and I’ll be shown around...? Maybe I can sneak some magic into it.”

“Betray you your wristband might.”

“Oh, I have already found a way around it.”

Yaddle snorted loudly: “Of course you have...”

“...Anyways, there’s something I wanted to tell slash ask you...”

“Hm?”

“I want to start poking around the ‘dark side’. But like. How do I do that?”

And they were light-years away, but Dani could sense her getting serious.

“Aware of the dangers, are you?”, she spoke with a voice that anyone would classify as soft only to realise the thickness behind it.

“I’ve been told it’s tempting, yeah. But I dunno. I don’t really care about power, you know? I know I’m not a saint, but I don’t think I’m a megalomaniac either. I know what I want, which are my objectives. The endgame it’s just... taking it easy. But I also know that the path there is going to be hell. So I want to be ready”, a brief pause, “I’m also very curious.”

“Talked about this with Shaak Ti, have you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I knew she would say no.”

“Say yes, you knew I would?”

“Yes, because you are The Coolest Jedi!”

Yaddle giggled mischievously despite herself.

“Tell you what I know, I will. But promise to tell me EVERYTHING about your progress, you must. And if you feel too much it is, promise to cease your efforts.”

“I promise”, Dani nodded from the bed, voice solemn.

The Jedi Master exhaled lengthily.

“From pain, fear and anger the Dark Side siphons its power. The key to fall for it, self-doubt is. Send you some texts on dark arts, I will. See if it gives you some ideas to start working, hm? Anything in mind, do you have?”

“The sparky thingy looks cool.”

“Force-lighting”, Yaddle hummed. “Yes, it does. Send you the texts, I will. Rest you should. Talk soon we will.”

“I’ll keep you updated. Thanks, Yaddle. Good night.”

“May the Force be with you.”

“May the Force be with you.”

Dani hung up and dropped her arm on the mattress, sighing deeply. She was really tired and was tempted to just stay in bed, but if she didn’t get up to get dinner she would regret it tomorrow. So she stood up, footsteps silent as she went to the bathroom, intending to splash some water over her face—

She shrieked and from inside the bathroom, Sal shrieked back.

“WHAT’S WITH PEOPLE AND ENTERING MY ROOM?!”

“I’M SO SORRY I SHOULDN’T BE HERE I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I WON’T TELL ANYBODY I’M SORRY!”

Luna took a deep breath and looked the clone up and down. Sal was shirtless— no, wait, was that some blacks with the underbelly cut-out—no wait, that was one of her sport bras!

“Why are you...?”, she pointed vaguely at the bras and turned to see that her closet’s door wasn’t fully closed, as she always left it. Dani turned her head back to stare at the cloth before looking at her squadmate in the eyes.

Sal was terrified. When they made eye-contact Dani became aware of the anxiousness in the air. Plus the harsh breathing and look of general panic.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, you are not in trouble...”, she lowered her hands in a soothing gesture, but Sal stepped back. She stepped back too as to not create the feeling of being trapped. “Just going to assume that you know how to pick locks too, I’m not even mad about you being here, but why did you...?”, Dani gestured again to the overstretched sportive black bra. Her eyes darted to Sal’s, and she frowned as the other stared back at her with eyes wide in fear. “Sal. What are your pronouns?”

Sal blinked in surprise, body jerking, and eyes started to dart around. Dani waited patiently.

“...She/Her...?”, Sal finally whispered after a long silence.

“Oh, I see”, Luna nodded with a tiny smile. “Sorry if I have ever misgendered you. I’ll do my best to do it right from now on.”

Sal was still tense as a stick, standing in the bathroom, fingers twitching slightly.

“So”, Dani continued, “Guess you wanted to experience bras?”

“I’m really sorry”, she repeated, scrambling to get it off.

“You can keep it”, she tried to soothe her with a lopsided smile. “I don’t think it will fit me anymore.”

The clone stopped her thrashing, but still seemed unsure.

“No?”

“Nah. That used to be a small size. Now probably a medium or a large. Too overstretched to return to its original size, I believe.”

“I’m really sorry”, Sal mused, lowering her gaze.

“It’s okay. I’m not angry. Guess I’ll have to order new bras, since I only had a pair...”, Dani hummed as she went to her closet, checking her underwear supply. “Yep. Need more bras and boyshorts.”

“...Are you going to tell the instructors?”

“No. I’m not a gossip, you know? Won’t be bringing it up every chance I get. I suppose it’s to be kept a secret?”, she leaned back from the closet to look her in the face.

“Yes, please.”

“You got it”, Dani nodded with a smile and picked up her phone, searching for underwear sales and deliveries. “Does somebody else know?”

“Cabur. Zero. Bee... And that’s it.”

“Alright. Should I use he/him pronouns when there are other people around?”

“Yes. Being myself on Kamino is... too dangerous”, she sighed.

Luna startled and put her phone away for a moment.

“Transphobia is a bitch. Would you like a hug?”, she offered, arms already spread.

“Yeah”, Sal croaked, and Dani held her gently as she buried her face on her shoulder.

The Earthling patted her back softly. She didn’t know what kind of comfort Sal preferred: she usually just gave physical contact and a listening ear, but they were in silence.

“I need to know if you heard me on the phone”, Luna finally said softly.

She felt Sal gulp down before she stepped back from the hug.

“I—I did”, she nodded.

“And what did you hear?”

The clone bit her lip, flinching slightly as she tried to read Dani’s expression in search of any sign of threat, but her face was relaxed and only blinked at her with big, innocuous eyes.

“...You mentioned Yaddle”, she started, and Luna’s posture did not change. “You said: may the Force be with you.”

Sal fell silent, fidgeting a bit and absentmindedly retrieving her shirt.

“You can’t tell anybody that I can use the Force.”

“I understand!”, she replied immediately, stiffing instinctively, but managed to relax at Dani’s laid back attitude. “Since you’ll be keeping my secret, I’ll be keeping yours.”

“Sounds fair”, the other nodded with a content smile. “Now, I would hate that there might be tension between us. Do you have any questions or concerns?”

“AreyouaJedi?”, she blurted out.

“I’m not”, Luna giggled. “I lived in the Jedi Temple for almost a year and I can use the Force, but I left to come train here.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t like the Code, but I do want to be a General, so, best way to become a General without being a Jedi? Training on Kamino”, Dani shrugged.

“Can you lift things? Can you lift your chair?”, Sal asked excitedly, pointing at the furniture.

“Don’t ask me to make things float”, she laughed nervously. “Everything I lift tends to explode...”

“Oh.”

“Yeah...”

“Do you have a lightsaber?”

“Yes.”

“Can I see it?”

“I don’t have it here. Shaak Ti keeps it for me.”

“Oh! That’s what your secret afternoon training is about!”, Sal shockingly realised.

“Yeah. What did you think it was about?”

“I dunno, General stuff.”

Dani snorted loudly and the two of them ended up laughing.

“So, are we good?”, Luna asked with a soft smile.

“Yeah”, Sal smiled back. “We are.”

“Cool! Sit down, then!”, Dani sat on the bed and patted the space beside her. “I’m going to order some new bras, but damn, I have NO IDEA how the size system works, so I guess I will have to order different sizes and types to see which one fits me better, huh?”, she explained smugly, chin raised in mischievousness.

Sal blinked at her with wide eyes before huffing a laugh.

“Are you... are you really going to do this? For me?”

“Sure. It’s no trouble”, she reassured her, already scrolling through the catalogue. “Would you like standard bras? I’m asking because I only use the sportive type. Here, watch this. What do you think?”

“I... I’ll start with the sportive too, if that’s alright... Those seem more discreet to wear...”

“Yeah, you are right”, Dani hummed, and kept scrolling.

“Dani.”

“Hm?”

“Thank you.”

She unglued her eyes from the phone to look at her eyes.

“Don’t mention it. Us women have to take care of each other, yeah?


	17. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When the picture was taken

“And this girl at my class, dad!!! She is prettier than Tiana!!!”, little Dani squeaked.

“Than Tiana? From Tiana and The Frog?”, he asked, exaggerating his shock.

“Yes!!!”

“She must be very pretty, then!”, Sol smiled, taking his daughter into his arms and making her bounce and giggle.

“Prettier than me?”, her mother asked with a teasing smile.

The little girl froze for a split second before she found her answer.

“Mom is pretty like Mulan!”, she chirped.

“And dad? Who is he pretty like?”

“Dad is pretty like Moana!”, she replied without hesitation.

“I sure am!”, he nodded, chuckling.

“And you? Who are you pretty like?”, her mother continued, laughing softly.

“I’m too young to be pretty, mom! I’m still a potato!”, she answered as if it was obvious.

Her parents cackled and she joined them, happy that she made them laugh so wholeheartedly.

“Are you sure you are a potato?”, her father asked mischievously. “Because if you are, I’m going to eat you!”

He said and bent over to blow at Dani’s tummy, making fake noises. She laughed and kicked, squirming to try to escape the tickles.

“I’m not a potato! Not a potato!”, she said between fits of laughter.

“Ah, no? And what are you then?”, Sol asked.

“I’m a Ducky!”, she squeaked, spreading her arms wide.

“Yes you are!”, he smiled, swinging her around.

“Easy, Sol. You are going to make her sick.”

“Faster!!!”, Ducky hollered.

“No, kiddo, mom’s right. Would you help me set the table? It’s a good day to have dinner in the garden.”

“Oh... But I want to play more...!”

“If we are done early, we can play again.”

“Oh! Okay!”, she nodded, and disappeared into the house.

Lian and Sol stood side by side, watching their daughter go.

“She is going to be great”, he sighed.

“She already is”, she smiled to herself.

“Yeah”, he said, voice trembling. “You are right.”

Lian turned to her husband, gently drying his tears and pulling him into a kiss.

“It’s okay”, she soothed him: “It’s okay, this is not a dream, we are here. We are real, and so are you”, she rocked him gently as he buried his face on her shoulder.

“I love you both so much...”, he hiccuped.

“And we love you back”, she said, kissing him again. “Little Ducky!”, she called when she saw her daughter coming out of the door loaded with plates, still too far away to see that her father had been crying. “Why don’t you go fetch the camera? We are going to take a picture of the three of us!”

“Okay!”, she called back, turning to set the plates on a nearby coffee table before skipping to the stairs.

Five minutes later they were sitting in the garden, Dani seated between them on their thighs as the adults leaned on each other and joined their arms in front of her as she rested her hands on theirs, the three of them smiling brightly.


	18. The Underbelly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is this hurt/comfort? Is this recovery? Is it fluff? Is it all? I don't know, they're just chilling

“Sir, your special delivery is here!”, Ratchet, one of the mechanic crew called her over.

“Oh!”, she exclaimed, and trotted up to him to peek inside the crate he was lazily leaning on. “Thank you!”

“Don’t mention it.”

Dani dug around a bit, checking that the most important items were there and taking them out.

“Could you leave these in my room?”, she asked, and he was already reaching to take the compress’ boxes in his arms. “Thanks a lot. And that—“, she added, reaching inside the crate again and taking out a bottle of liquor, “—is for you and the boys. My treat.”

“Very appreciated”, Ratchet beamed, and took the bottle too before turning around and leaving.

Luna gathered the items in her arms and walked swiftly in the opposite direction, exiting the hangar and going to take several elevators to go down, down, down. The corridors there were practically deserted and smaller. It was the zone where the maintenance crew quarters where. After running all around _The Unruly_ when it was given to her, she had decided to make some...extensions.

She ducked into a smaller corridor and stopped in front of a lateral door, knocking four times.

“What does the fox say?”, somebody called from the other side.

“ _Chacha-chacha-chacha-chow!!!!_ ”, she hollered and huffed a laugh.

The door opened with a swish, a fully armoured guard stepping aside to let her in.

“Welcome, General”, he nodded.

“Thanks, Match”, she smiled, and walked inside.

The room wasn’t much, but at least it was wide and it could accommodate its inhabitants without becoming crowded. There were curtains and panels here and there to give as much privacy as possible. Turns out: clones are not very used to it and only want it when they are having a hard time.

That’s why at the moment the only section closed off was the one around Sea’s bed. Beam, a trooper they have snatched off the 41st, was standing right next to the curtain, stance indecisive, but he turned when he heard her steps with unseeing eyes.

“Dani?”

“Hi, Beam! How you doing? I bring stuff!”, she said with cheerful voice.

His lips twitched into a smile: “What kind of stuff?”, he asked, and slowly followed her steps.

“I would offer you a hand but I already have them full”, she said apologetically. “Stuff that will make the waiting less tedious, with any luck.”

She set the crate on an unoccupied table, and soon the other clones gathered around: the ones who could move wheeling those who couldn’t closer.

“Here I have some sodas and candy. And some crackers with flavours of things that I have never heard of”, she listed and she passed it around. The snacks were offered and accepted or refused and put away in storage. “Here I have some wooden puzzles. You are supposed to take them apart and put them together. Arming them is the hard part.”, four blocks able to disarm in different shapes were tossed around. “Also some datapads with novels. I always lean towards fantasy so I tried hard to pick other genres too. Beam, this is for you!”, she chirped, and placed something in his hands.

He rolled the object, feelings its shape and texture.

“What is it?”, he asked, tilting his head in mild confusion.

“An adapted puzzle! On my planet we call these Rubik Cubes. You feel the different shapes on the six sides?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright: this puzzle can move like this”, she said, and placed her hands over his to shift the cube, “and like this. You are supposed to scramble it, and then rearrange it so there’s the same shape on each side.”

“Hum. I see”, he said, and snorted when he realised the unintended pun, but he busied himself with the Rubik Cube.

“I also bring some fresh fruit”, she continued, and took the refrigerated bag out of the crate. “And more colouring books and new markers.”

“Yeah!”, somebody cheered, and a book was immediately snatched.

“I also have some holovids, and stickers if you want to decorate something in particular.”

Dani kept taking things out of the crate until it was empty of its contents, and took it aside in case they could use it for something later.

All the clones awaiting for extraction had found something to keep themselves entertained, so Dani picked up one of the colouring books and a pack of markers and walked to Sea’s space. She pocked with the Force to check if he was awake.

“Hi, Sea! You awake?”, she asked out of politeness as she slipped past the curtain, because yeah, he was awake, and she had to make an entrance in a fashion that he couldn’t answer her to not engage with him.

The ex-501st was sitting up in bed, gaze unfocused that turned mildly annoyed when Dani entered his space, his only hand rubbing the sheets absentmindedly.

“How you doing?”, she asked with cheerful voice and soft eyes.

He just lowered his eyes.

Dani sighed softly and sat the chair beside his bed.

“Phantom pain?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you take your meds?”

“Yeah”, he repeated, a bit more annoyed.

Without a word, she placed her hand where his right wrist would be, grasping the absent limb and sending _soothing, acceptance_ through the Force. Sea’s frown dissipated, and he released a shaky sigh.

“...Thanks”, he mused.

“You are welcome”, Luna nodded, “Here! I brought you a colouring book!”

“I don’t want some dumb book for tubie— oh.”

His grumble went interrupted when Dani opened the book and showed him one of the draws inside. It was clearly not child-level, some mandalas greatly detailed, and above all, beautiful.

“Cool, huh? I’ll take one for me, if you don’t mind. Here, pick one”, she teared a sheet off and placed it on a small table with wheels before passing him the book.

Sea reached out slowly, making sure to have a good grip with his only hand and placing it awkwardly on his lap to turn the pages. There were some animal based designs, Dani herself had picked a bird made with wavy shapes and was already scrambling the markers, fingers hovering over the green tones. Sea first looked through thee whole book. There really were a lot of cool draws, but insecurity was clawing at him.

“I think you should paint them”, he mused, and Luna ceased her painting to blink at him in a silent question. He averted his gaze and stared at his left hand. “I won’t be able to do it right.”

“Well”, she began. “You won’t know until you try. And that’s pretty much the point of this: to gain dexterity with your left hand”, she gestured. “I know, I know: I can’t even imagine how it feels to lose an arm. And I am sorry that I can’t understand you the way you need to be understood. My words may be kinda empty, but... Your life is not over. You sustained a traumatic injury, but you CAN recover. It will take a lot of adapting and practising, but Sea”, she leaned forwards to take his hands in hers. Slowly, he looked at her. “You will be alright.”

Her words seemed to echo in his ears. He flexed his fingers and Dani let go of him.

“Pass me a red”, he sighed.

Luna gave a discreet smile and presented him with an assortment of reds.

Every now and then, Dani peeked at how he was doing: he seemed to be concentrating on the widest spots to paint and was putting a lot of cautiousness when painting right next to the limits of the draw. A few spots of colour streaked past the lines, but that was expected. She wondered how would he fare when he got to the small details.

For now, she returned to her mandala. She had started painting the bird with vibrant greens, and now she didn’t know which colour use for smaller details without the contrast being too obvious.

“Should I paint this with a lighter green, a deep blue, or go with orange?”, she asked, raising the sheet to show it to Sea.

“Give me a sec”, he mused as he finished painting a spiral. His hand slipped and he painted a streak over a part he hadn’t painted yet, and scowled at it, but blinked up to study Dani’s mandala. “Hm... Orange might be too much. And green too uniform. Try a blue?”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Thanks”, she smiled, and dug around the markers, but none of them were the shade she wanted. “Be back in a sec.”

She stood up and pulled the curtain aside before closing it behind her.

“Does somebody have the ‘Twi’lek skins’ set?”, she asked out loud.

“Over here!”, someone on her right waved the markers in the air.

“I need to see the blues.”

“You can take the whole package. I’m not using it”, Woody shrugged. 90% of his focus was on solving the puzzle in his hands.

“Okay. Thanks!”

“Dani!”, he called out was she turned to leave.

“Yeah?”

“I hate to sound pressing, but... any news on when the extraction will be?”

She cleared her throat so everybody could hear her.

“At the moment we are heading to Saleucami to meet with a contact. If the conditions are good, we can unload you there; if not, I’ll have to arrange at least a couple meetings in different locations to secure your exit. My best guess, and the only thing I am comfortable promising, is that you’ll be out in two months, tops.”

Some groaned, some hummed in the closest thing to content that they had at the moment.

“Thanks, General”, Woody nodded.

“No need to call me that, Woody. You are not under my orders”, she smiled, “Thanks for the markers!”

Dani returned to Sea’s bedside.

“Leave the curtain open”, he piped up shyly when she grabbed it to close it behind her.

“No problem”, she chirped, and returned to her chair. “Check out this colours, maybe there’s some that will fit well with your draw”, she said, passing the box to him.

“Thanks”, he took it from her, his grip more confident than when he had taken the book.

“Would you like to go for a walk later?”, Luna asked, her eyes back on her work. “I bet your ass hurts from lying all day”, she smirked.

“We are allowed?”

“Sure. As long as we don’t go near the elevator. Still, it’s a wide ship. We can invite Beam to come with us. Have you talked to him?”

“I... haven’t talked much. At all”, he admitted, scratching the back of his head and his newly-cut hair.

“I think you would like each other. But if you rather that it’s just you and I, I won’t press. Your choice.”

She heard the colouring book snap close, and when she rose her gaze Sea was already pulling the sheets aside.

“Ask him if he wants to come. My ass is REALLY sore.”


	19. Contacts on Saleucami

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know what's going to happen... No, wait, you know the HALF of what's going to happen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: I forgot to include an important topic in Ducky's and Naai's conversation. It's a short mention but it's importantto the timeline and future chapters.  
> Next chapter is Kamino!!

“I’m giving you some money to buy whatever candy you find”, Dani piped up from the co-pilot seat of the gunship as they descended on Saleucami.

“Should I buy an assortment?”, Pedal asked.

“Nah, pick one and buy all the stock. Pick another one if you think it won’t be enough for everybody.”

“That’s a lot of candy.”

“It’s a lot of mouths to feed.”

“Touché.”

They landed at the outskirts of a large settlement with two gunships more. The pilots removed their helmets and covered their armour with wide, ragged cloaks, carrying only small pistols as to not agitate the population.

“I’ll pick you up in two days”, Pedal remembered her as she pulled a speedster out of the holding bay. “Unless you call me because you are lost.”

“I won’t get lost!”, she pouted. “I have already checked the coordinates and directions 37 times out of anxiousness, so I’m sure I’ll get there!”

Pedal, Compass and Maps sputtered and cackled.

“It’s not funny!”, Dani whined, but she was smiling too.

“Go do your thing”, Maps shook his head. “And PLEASE, do call us if you get lost. Wouldn’t want to have to explain that we lost our General because she is too proud to call for help.”

“I won’t get lost!”, she repeated, mounting the vehicle. “And I will call if I’m not where I’m supposed to be by dusk”, she nodded.

“Try not to crash”, Pedal deadpanned.

“I won’t crash!”

“Tell that to the obstacles of piloting lessons on Kamino.”

Dani snorted at the memories and turned even more red, shaking her head.

“Try not to get scammed”, she teased back, and turned on the engine. “See you ‘round!”

 

It was a long but quiet journey to the meeting point with hers and Naai’na’ra’s common contact. Dani managed quite well with the speedster, since there was no traffic and she could just lazily swerve around when she got bored. For once, she just listened to nature, checking the coordinates and her position often. She wondered how the contact might be, not because it mattered, but because she was bored. Luna did not care who were her contacts as long as they knew how to be discreet and were invested in their cause. Personal investment was the best guarantee somebody could get, in her humble opinion.

Eventually she found a path, and the vegetation around her turned to crops. She slowed down, determined to be able to tell Pedal that she didn’t hit a thing when she went back, already smirking at the thought. The path narrowed slightly, now with fences at either side. It lead into a wide clearing, with a couple buildings in front and at her right, and some sort of cattle that looked like ugly elephants pasturing at her left.

She hadn’t had time to turn off the engine that the door from the building to her right was kicked open and a pink Twi’lek aimed at her with a gun that could have been from Earth.

“Ra-ra-Rasputin!”, she chanted.

“Russia’s greatest love machine!”, she completed, and howled with laughter.

The woman lowered her weapon and huffed at her, eyebrow raised.

“What’s so funny?”

“The fact that I can get away with these passwords”, Dani snorted, and shook her head. “It’s not important. Sorry, that was unprofessional of me”, she added, clearing her throat and dismounting.

“So you are Ducky”, the Twi’lek mused, eyeing her.

“I am. Nice to meet you, and thank you for helping us out”, Dani said sincerely, holding out a hand.

The woman eyed it, but didn’t take it.

“Are you armed?”

“No. You can search me if you want.”

She then took her hand and patted around her arms, legs and torso, and once she was done she shook her hand.

“I’m Suu Lawquane. My husband there, who has been aiming at your head with a rifle since you got here, is Cut Lawquane”, she smirked, gesturing with her head behind Dani.

Luna startled and turned around, in the direction of the cattle, from where a man emerged and walked towards them.

“Ducky, I suppose”, he smiled, with the rifle hanging from his shoulder. “Nice to meet you.”

“Hi”, Dani gasped when she recognized his face, and honestly impressed at his strategy. She hadn’t even considered that one of the life-forms from the cloud that the cattle formed in the Force-sight could be a human. “Likewise.”

“Take your speeder to the barn, we’ll talk there”, Suu said, already heading there.

Dani nodded and pushed the vehicle along. Cut and Suu opened the doors for her.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Park it over there.”

She breathed in the smell of animals and dried weeds, and briefly studied the farming tools and benches scattered around. Then, she turned to her hosts.

“Do you have news on Naai’na’ra?”

“She’s scheduled to arrive tomorrow”, Cut said as he crossed his arms.

“In person?”, Dani blinked in surprise.

“Yes.”

Ducky smiled at the idea: “Oh, wow! Guess the conditions to do the extraction are good, then!”

The married couple exchanged a glance. She looked legitimately excited at the idea.

“So, Ducky”, Cut began, pulling some benches closer. “Since you will be staying for the night, how about you tell us about yourself?”

Thoughts raced through her mind, and an urge pulsed deep in her chest. She clamped her lips as to not cede at the temptation, but another wave of thoughts compelled her to just... try.

“The less you know, the safer you will be”, she sighed.

The ideal would be that the intermediaries held no information: only passing people or supplies. And in that situation it would have probably been that way, if Cut wasn’t... Cut.

“But I barely get a chance to experience this, so I’m going to have a selfish moment and go with it”, Dani continued, and showed them her picture.

“My name is Dani. Nice to meet you, _bavodu’e_ ”, she bowed slightly, suddenly shy.

Cut jerked a bit in surprise before raising his gaze and staring at her.

“ _Ba’ad_ ”, he whispered, almost out of breath.

He rose to his feet and stepped towards her, arms open. She slowly got up too, only thinking she knew what he was about to do but not wanting to assume, and the most paranoid part of her whispering her to get ready it case he had taken offense. But Cut’s stance didn’t turn hostile, and he wrapped his arms around her softly.

“I have so many questions...”, he breathed when he pulled away. “Who’s your father? And your mother? Where are you from? How did you get involved in this?”

“It’s a long story”, she smiled apologetically, scratching at her curls. “Feels wrong to rush it...”

“Ah, Cut, you are stressing her out”, Suu huffed.

“Sorry, sorry. I still can’t believe it”, he breathed, returning the photo to its owner.

“Yeah, it was quite a shock for me too when I discovered that I have hundreds of thousands of uncles...”, she giggled nervously. “Anyways, thank you for having me, regardless of relativeness! It means a lot to me that you would help.”

“How could I not, when you are giving freedom to my brothers. Giving them the chance to live and be whatever they want to be...”, he stepped back to gently hold Suu, and she held him back.

Dani noticed that he seemed to ask her permission to do something with his eyes. The Twi’lek frowned for a long moment before nodding and smiling softly.

“Say, Dani: would you like to meet your cousins?”, he asked with a wide smile.

She literally froze, looking like a startled animal.

“...I have cousins?”

“They are in the house, grumpy because we had a guest that they couldn’t meet. But looks like we will be having a family dinner, tonight”, Suu hummed and smirked fondly.

“I don’t want to impose”, Dani said softly.

“It’s no trouble. We already accounted for you being around here, now there’s literally no reason for you to eat on your own”, Cut waved the sentence away.

“Thanks”, she smiled sheepishly, really wanting another hug but not feeling comfortable enough to ask for it.

“Come”, the clone said, resting an arm on her shoulders and guiding her outside, Suu following suit. “I’m sure they will be excited to meet you. Are you nervous?”

“A lot”, she admitted, “It used to be just my parents and me, then my uncles, and now I have relatives that might be my age or younger? I never thought that I... That I would have such a big family”, she explained shakily.

“Ah, have you met a lot of my brothers?”

“Yeah.”

“And... do they know about you?”

“Just the ones closer to me. And whenever I need one of them to trust me. But I know some of them wouldn’t react well. I’m being extremely lucky at the moment.”

“Well, you look like a cautious person. I’m sure that if you trust your judgment you will be alright.”

“Thanks”, Ducky exhaled, appreciating the praise while fighting to not let it go over her head.

“Children!”, Suu called upstairs. “Do you want to meet our guest?”

“We can?!”, a female voice asked.

“But you said we couldn’t!”, a male added.

“Turns out our guest is really special. Come meet your family.”

Two gasps were heard, followed by quick short steps, and suddenly there were two kids standing on the stairs, looking down at her. Her mother nudged them to go all the way down as Cut stepped aside.

“Shaeeah, Jek. This is your cousin Dani. Dani; Shaeeah, the eldest; and Jek, the youngest.”

The three of them stared at each other in awe for a long, almost magical moment.

“It’s very nice to meet you”, she finally said with a shy smile.

The silence stretched again, and Cut was about to nudge them into conversation when Jek screeched:

“WE HAVE A COUSIN!!!”

And flung himself to Dani.

She caught him without trouble and pulled him up for a quick hug.

“That’s SO cool!”, Shaeeah skipped to her, looking up in wonder.

“And I have TWO cousins!”, Dani smiled widely. “How cool is that?!”

“A LOT!”, the little Twi’lek rose her hands into the air, and Luna buckled her knees so she could scoop her up too.

“Mommy, daddy, can we go play with Dani? Please, please, please!”, Jek started begging, and his sister joined him almost immediately.

“If you promise not to stray too far...”, Suu sighed.

“I will keep an eye on them”, Ducky nodded, sporting the air of maturity of a new-found elder sibling.

“Yeah!!!”, Jek and Shaeeah cheered. She lowered them to the floor and they took her hands, dragging her outside.

Dani turned her head to give an awestruck smile to Suu and Cut, before turning to her cousins with bright eyes.

 

The three of them returned hours later, when the sun was starting to set, to help prepare dinner and set the table. Ducky watched the unknown roasted animal with a mix of apprehension and curiosity: it kinda looked like an oversized toad, but on the other hand, it was REAL meat. And who was she to decline that?

And now she sat at the table between her cousins, who chattered to their parents about the blast they had had during the afternoon.

“Jek and I were hiding among the crops but Dani always found us! Did you follow our smell?”, Shaeeah asked.

“No, no. I just followed my guts”, she smiled.

“You must have really good guts”, Suu commented.

“Must be the older-sibling-instinct taking over”, she huffed, and the other laughed.

“Are you going to stay to live with us?”, Jek asked, hopeful.

“Sorry, kiddo”, Dani said with a sad smile. “But I can’t stay. I have lots of work to do.”

“Oh...”, he deflated, and she rested her arm across his shoulders to comfort him.

“See? I told you!”, his sister pouted. “Rex didn’t stay either...”

Dani blinked.

“Rex?”

“Ah, yes. Some time ago, another one of your uncles made it here. But he chose to return to his battalion.”

“Rex. Rex, Captain of the 501st?”

“Yes?”

“THAT’S GREAT NEWS!!!!”, she couldn’t stop herself from standing up abruptly, mind racing with new possibilities. “I know him too! And if he has met you and hasn’t said anything to High Command, it’s very possible that he would be willing to cooperate with our enterprise!”

“I don’t know, Dani”, Cut grimaced briefly. “He was alright with keeping my secret, but he still chose to go back to his General out of loyalty...”

“His General? Or his brothers?”, she inquired, and the man fell silent with realisation.

“Oh, you are good at this...”, he smirked before realisation crossed his features again, but these time scrunching them in confusion. “Wait. How did you meet a Captain of the GAR?”

Ducky slowly sat back down.

“I... don’t think it’s a good idea to talk about our business in front of the children”, she said, side-glancing at them.

“No fair!”, Shaeeha pouted, crossing her arms. “We can keep secrets too! We want to know!”

Dani stayed silent, not really knowing how their parents wanted to manage the situation, holding her hands up in a manner that said: _I’m not doing or saying anything unless you give me your okay._

“It’s something we would rather you not know, sweetheart”, Cut soothed her.

“But--!”

“No buts”, Suu hushed her. “Do you really want to stay here and listen to boring adult business? Or would you rather go prepare to camp with your cousin in the barn?”

“CAMPING IN THE BARN!”, the siblings cheered, and ran upstairs.

“It’s super effective...”, Dani mused to herself.

“Well then,” Cut cleared his throat, “How did you meet Captain Rex?”

Luna sobered up, interlacing her fingers on the table.

“I’m a General of the GAR. I have had contact with his battalion a handful of times.”

“A General?!”, Suu gasped. “I thought only Jedis were Generals.”

“More than 50% are. But there are some GAR officers, all reg-born. I’m the first Force-user non Jedi affiliated General.”

“And how— How did you end up in this... enterprise?”, Cut whispered.

“I created it and set it in motion”, she shrugged.

Cut’s palms slammed down on the wooden table as he leaned forwards towards her.

“You are the very core of ALL of this and you are on the ground to meet a contact?!”, he whisper-shouted.

“Well. I am ‘the core’ on the Republic side. And Naai’na’ra is ‘the core’ on the Separatist side...”

“You are both the leaders and you are meeting in person?!”, he seemed disconcerted by the situation, and Dani was starting to lose her chill.

“Well, I didn’t know she was coming in person! I thought I would meet with another contact of hers!”, she hissed.

“And you came unarmed?!”

“That’s part of the deal?!”, she shot back, looking at a loss.

“Cut, dear”, Suu placed a hand on his shoulder. “It is a dumb idea, but let’s get on the positive side: nobody has tailed Ducky so far, so let’s trust that Naai’na’ra will be as diligent and whatever negotiations have to take place will be way more smoother than with intermediaries.”

Dani gave her a grateful look.

“I can’t believe you”, he mused, shaking his head slowly.

“Listen, I can’t give you more details, but I assure you everything is as safe as it can be. Everything is taken care of on my side, and I am certain Naai has everything under control, too.”

“That’s enough talking about business”, Suu sighed. “Tell us about you”, she added softly, leaning forwards slightly.

“Um. Well. I’m Dani. My mother’s name was Lian, and she was from planet Terra of the Solar system of the galaxy Milky Way. Yeah, yeah: we gotta get a better name... My father’s name is Sol. He left when I was eleven... But left like, in a good way: he sat me down to explain why he was leaving and that he was going to come back. But mom died three years later.”

“Oh, sweetheart. I’m so sorry...”, Suu gasped, placing a hand on Dani’s.

“...Thanks... Anyways, my mother was a single child and I never met my grandparents. There were some family friends, but... I left. My mother had been working on a way of following my dad. We were going to come to look for him. But in the end it was just me.”

Nobody was able to find words for that. She passed her hand through her hand, sighing.

“So, I’m directing this... ‘enterprise’, while looking for my father. And trying to end the war. Whatever comes first.”

“That’s a lot”, Cut mused.

“Yeah. It felt like it at the beginning. But I have good friends, you know? Life still sucks sometimes, but we help each other out. We cope. And even small victories encourage us to keep going.”

“Well. I’m glad to hear that”, he said with a soft smile.

Luna smiled back at her father’s face.

“I’m ready!”, Shaeeha piped up, running down the stairs.

She was carrying a backpack that she immediately put on the table and started taking out things to show them to Dani:

“I have my second-favourite pillow! And my sleeping-bag, and my favourite plushy!”

“Very nice”, she smiled, gently stroking the toy.

“I have snacks!”, her brother bounced beside her. “And a lantern and a book, so you can read us a story!”

“Looks like you have all the night planned”, Suu chuckled.

“It will be the best sleepover EVER!”, the siblings cheered, and they took her hands, tugging her towards the doo

“Uh, do I need to pick up something?”, she asked to the couple, slowly surrendering to her cousins’ efforts.

“Everything is ready. Feel free to call us if anything’s wrong”, Cut waved.

“I’ll make sure they sleep. Good night!”

“Good night, kids.”

“Good night, mom! Good night, dad!”

 

Handling two kids had proven to be as challenging as directing an illegal smuggling organization. Dani hadn’t been able to convince them to go to sleep: she had talked and played and read for hours until she was exhausted, and even then the children still bounced and clapped at new ideas to pass the time. Eventually she had just played dead and resisted all their attempts to wake her up until they got tired too.

She woke up the next morning when the door of the barn swung open and an eopie made an unholy sound.

“Good morning, campers! Rise and shine!”, Cut greeted with a cheerful voice.

Jek and Shaeeha were on their feet in no time, on their way to the house to get ready for the day. Dani rolled on her stomach, groaning and looking up at her _ba’vodu_ with a sleepy gaze.

“I bet everything else in your life looks like a piece of cake right now, hum?”, he snorted.

She laughed at the joke, but made no comment.

Despite the initial trouble waking up, Luna quickly sobered up and lent a hand around the farm: handing tools, keeping an eye on the cattle and helping with the house chores, plus keeping the kids distracted. Like this, the morning slipped away, and so did the afternoon. At the light of twilight, Dani stood outside, expanding her Force-sight and trying to pinpoint Naai’na’ra. She saw the Lawquane family, the cattle, all the bugs and animals crawling around... But no trace of her. She was checking all the signatures of the flock when she noticed Cut about to come out of the house, and she turned to look at him.

“Worried?”, he asked, walking towards her.

“Anxious.”

“Maybe yesterday’s camping was a bad idea. Looks like you’ll be negotiating at night.”

“I have lived through a couple campaigns. I can stand two sleepless night. But I did sleep a bit yesterday.”

“So did Suu and I.”

Ducky smiled softly.

“I would offer my services as a nanny, but...”

“Yeah, I get it. You’ll be missed, though. The kids have grown on you.”

“The feeling’s mutual”, she nodded with a sad smile.

“Glad to hear that”, he nodded back. “I wanted to thank you”, he said after a minute of silence. “for setting all this up. I would have never believed it possible if I hadn’t been sent footage of my rescued brothers.”

“No? There’s a Clone Rights movement on Coruscant, you know? My contact in the Senate has established a link with them, and we sent them information so there can be a back-and-forth with the public opinion and the speeches in the Senate. We can’t provide things too revealing at the moment without risking the lives of your brothers on Kamino, but, you know, baby steps. I hope this meeting with Naai can set the path for smoother smuggles.”

“Speaking of which: she is waiting for you in the barn. I wish you the best of luck.”

She forgot all about thanking him as she bolted around and checked, and yeah: there was a signal that hadn’t been there just five minutes ago. She briskly walked towards the closed door, making an effort to slow herself down, and knocked two times.

“Never gonna give you up!”, a voice chanted.

“Never gonna let you down!”, Dani chanted back with a smile.

The door opened and hands pulled her inside.

Their lips met immediately, arms following to hold each other as they enjoyed the texture of each other’s lips. In fact, what Naai’na’ra had weren’t quite lips, at least not like those of the humans: it was more like thin mandibles that could slip down and to the sides and stretch outwards, revealing two sets of sharp and robust teeth. Regardless, it tickled, and Dani loved it.

“Missed you, Ducky”, the alien mused against her neck.

“Missed you too, Naai”, she purred into the vestigial tentacles of her head, smoothed backwards.

The Separatist picked her up and looked up straight to Dani’s eyes, both trapped in an intense stare. Luna leaned to kiss her mandibles again as Naai slowly moved towards the pile of blankets and pillows left the night before.

 

Some time later they were both laying under the blankets, holding each other. Dani was slowly caressing Naai’s deep blue skin and marvelling at the hardened texture of it. On the other hand, Naai was entranced with Dani’s soft curls, giving quite a good head massage.

“We really should start talking business...”

“Mhm, Ducky... Business can wait...”

“Don’t do this. You know it doesn’t take much to convince me...”, she chuckled.

“Okay, okay, you’re right...”, Naai sighed, and pulled her close to her chest. “What do you got for me?”

Dani cleared her throat while twisting her face towards Naai’s neck.

“Got an independent cell working within the 501st legion. Just yesterday I found out that its Captain might be willing to collaborate, and have in mind that if I tell you this is because there’s a very high chance it’s this way. I have twenty clones in my ship awaiting for extraction. Since my link with the 501st is quite invested, I’ve been thinking of reaching out to more battalions. With a previous study of the candidates, of course.”

“We’ll have to start sharing contact with thirds, then”, Naai hummed.

“It’s the only way we can enlarge this operation.”

“Do this candidates include Jedi?”

“Some. At the moment I have a couple in mind, I will reach out to them as soon as I can. I have a campaign scheduled with one of them.”

“You trust those independent cells?”

“I trust they are the safest way to take out as many clones as possible safely. We will share contacts and resources, but nobody will know about the others’ operations unless they are explicitly coordinated.”

“I see. I will call out in Neutral and Separatist territory for any that would be willing to take the clones in, maybe even send the help wherever they are instead of taking them to special centres.”

“Make sure they can stay in touch with their brothers, tho. They get anxious when they are alone for long periods of time.”

“Will do. So. We’re getting ready for expansion.”

“Yeah. Listen, there’s... There’s something I need to ask you”, Dani said, her voice troubled.

“Tell me”, Naai said, getting up on her elbows as she picked up on the other’s concern.

“I’ve been told that a friend of mine, a clone, died not long ago on a mission to the Citadel...”

“Oh, Ducky. I’m so sorry”, she said wholeheartedly, placing a comforting hand on her arm.

“But something is not right.”

“What do you mean?”, Naai asked with a tilt of her head, squinting.

“When someone I love dies, I—I feel it. The bond snaps. I guess it’s a Force thing, but... I’m certain my bond with Echo is intact.”

“You think he is alive?”

“I DON’T think he is dead. And the Citadel is a famed prison...”

“...It’s not exactly my field, so it might take a while, but I will look into it.”

“Thank you, Naai. I owe you”, Dani sighed, leaning on her chest.

“You would do the same for me if one of my subordinates disappeared in the GAR’s hands.”

“You can bet on it”, she nodded as they fell silent. “What about the people I have in my ship? Is it safe for me to leave them with you now?”

“If you are clear to unload them, then, yeah, I can pick them up.”

“Great!”, Dani smiled, getting up on her hands to look at Naai’s face. “Poor guys were starting to get cabin fever. They’re gonna be so happy!”

She chuckled softly.

“I love how someone else’s happiness makes you happy.”

Luna smiled wider and lied on Naai, sighing deeply.

“Missed you.”

“Missed you too”, she replied, running her seven-fingered hand up and down her back. “Your tattoo hasn’t faded a bit”, she commented as her fingers traced the ink on Dani’s right shoulder blade.

“It better don’t. How am I supposed to describe my planet’s map to an artist that has never seen it?”

“It would certainly be a challenge.”

“You gotta tell me about your planet someday.”

“Once the war is over, I’ll take you there. I’ll show you my hometown, and my favourite cove, and take you to my favourite restaurants.”

“Can’t wait for it. And once you have shown me, I’ll will take you with me to Terra, or teach you how to get there, if you can’t go at the moment for whatever reason. It’s a long journey, after all.”

“How long?”

“I spent a handful of months in hyperspace just to get to the Outer Rim.”

“That’s quite a travel.”

“It was worth it.”

“Glad to hear that”, Naai smiled before kissing her. “You think we will be able to meet again soon?”, she sighed, already knowing the answer.

“Not in a few months”, Dani lamented, back to pressing her lips on Naai’s neck and shoulders.

“I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too. How about I take a present with me next time? Something that will remind you of me.”

“Yeah. I’ll think of something for you too.”

“But—”

“—it has to be something untraceable—“, they both said at the same time, and giggled.

“Something handmade, then”, Naai nodded.

“The best kind of gift”, Dani nodded back.

They stayed in silence for a long time, enjoying each other’s company and caresses, listening to each other’s hearts and taking in their essences and just... loving each other.

“...Do you know that we just had sex in my uncle’s barn?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Naai'na'ra is not just a human with fancy skin colour because I'm not a coward and neither is Luna


	20. Kamino IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit goes down on Kamino, folks!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of: mentruation, implied torture, death
> 
> Yeah, canonical death ahead. Sorry. Couldn't save everybody...

“Why does it look like 80% of the fauna in this galaxy exists only to devour you in awful ways?”

“Because it does”, Cabur replied without missing a beat.

“I’m just saying, this is weird. Where are the herbivores that could totally obliterate you too?”

The clone laughed, caught off guard.

“Thought you were going to whine about the lack of friendly herbivores.”

“Since when are wild herbivores friendly? Do you know what an hippopotamus is? They can weight 3200kg, have big-ass fangs, run as fast as you and swim even faster!”

Cabur whistled loudly.

“I bet they look terrifying.”

“They look stupid, that’s what they look! A chubby tetrapod that will smash you to death if you dare walk in its sight! At least the animals in these records have the decency to scream ‘danger’ with their looks!”

“You really aren’t a fan of hippopotamus, are you?”

“I’m surely not”, she sighed, sitting down from where she had stood in excitement over her explanation. “Do you know what boxing his?”

“Yeah.”

“On Terra there’s kangaroos. Animals that can do boxing.”

“Now you’re making that up.”

“I’m not!”

“Are you telling me that you could be walking around Terra’s wild and an animal comes and punches you in the face?”, he said with an incredulous smile and a raised eyebrow.

“Yes! If you are lucky, because oh, man, I have the feeling that their kicks are even worse...”

“Boxing animals...”, he mused, shaking his head and returning to his lecture.

Cabur had invited Dani to study animals. Turns out it was a hobby of his, and she had been excited to have somebody to talk about fauna and evolution. She was still warping her head around the idea that there was an evolutionary convergence on _Homo sapiens_ , since it seemed like the species had appeared in whole different planets all around the galaxy.

Shit, if she ever wrote a paper on that that could earn her a doctorate and a Nobel Prize simultaneously... Wait, had somebody done that already?

“...We have giant rats that build dams.”

“AW, COME ON!”, he laughed exasperatedly. “Next think you tell me there’s an animal that looks like a fusion of that and— and— I don’t know! A water bird!”

“...Ever heard of the platypus?”

“I can’t—”

“The males are poisonous.”

“—believe you—”

“They have fur and lay eggs and have mammary glands. We had to make a special division inside the mammals because we didn’t know where to put them.”

There was a moment of silence as they stared at each other, Dani doing her best to not brake down laughing at Cabur’s face.

“Your planet is a _kriffing_ NIGHTMARE!”

“My planet is cool as fuck! Australia IS a fucking nightmare! Did you know that the urban furniture gets absolutely covered by spider web on the reproductive season?! I would have a breakdown if that happened around me...!”

Cabur shook his head yet again in... amazement, maybe?

“Your planet is a wild ride.”

“We have a fruit called coconut that has hair and makes milk.”

“THAT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE.”

“Says the guy reading on Felucia’s flora, which can detect you and has vines strong enough to snap your bones and drag you to their mouth.”

“BUT HOW DOES A FRUIT MAKE MILK?”

“I was messing with you, dude; it’s a way of speaking not a literal thing!”

“Thank the Force!”, he sighed, leaning on the table to rest his head against it. “You got me there for a moment thinking about all those crazy animals running around...”

“No, no: the coconut milk is a form of speech. The animals are all legit.”

His jaw dropped and she laughed loudly.

 

Basic Combat Training Exam Day.

_YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME_ , she screeched internally as she felt a familiar sensation between her legs.

She was just about to go out to meet with Unruly and the others, but bolted immediately for the bathroom and slid down her pants and boyshorts.

_Another one bites the dust_

_This is going to suck SO MUCH,_ Dani whined internally, but soldiered up, did what she had to do and went out.

“It’s not like you to be more than five minutes late”, Zero blinked at her, and so did the others.

“Sorry. Last minute holdup. I’m fine. Shall we?”, she gestured to the gym where the exam was taking place.

Her friends started filtering inside, and she discreetly readjusted her pants.

El-Les was there, datapad in his hands. They formed up and waited the ten minutes left. Once they were all there and the time was right, the instructor cleared his throat.

“Alright, you are all paired up. First match: CT-6456 and CT-6454.”

Sal and Unruly stepped onto the mat and stroke their fighting pose.

“Remember: the counterattacks and adaptation to the opponent’s strikes is what is more considered and will be used to decide your grade. Winning the match assures you a high score. Whoever immobilizes their opponent for three seconds wins, and if you are getting out of hand I will stop the fight. Go.”

Dani watched their moves. They looked like blocks of solid stone, though Sal moved a little more fluidly than Unruly. She landed some punches to his chest, but he barely looked bothered by it. On the other hand, he had barely brushed her: she was mad good at dodging. It all went down when he kicked at her legs and Sal lost balance, falling on the mat. Unruly dived behind her and went to hold her down, but she kicked up and he flew away from her, scrambling to get up before she could take a vantage point, but it was too late: she had already flung herself on top of him and was sitting on his stomach, holding his wrists against the floor. Unruly jerked, trying to get free, and realised too late that he should had tried to get rid of her with his legs: his first attempt at looping them around Sal’s neck failed, and by then the three seconds had passed.

El-Les nodded and they got up, leaving the mat free and returning to formation.

“You guys did great!”, Luna whispered.

“Thanks”, Sal smiled.

“You got me there”, Unruly nudged his sister playfully with an elbow.

“Thought I was done for when you threw yourself over me...”, she admitted with an unnerved chuckle.

Dani’s quiet encouragement hid great anxiousness and a thrumming heart. Sure, she had spared before with her friends during training, but this was a competition now. What if they had always gone easy on her? What if she wasn’t strong to win and they kicked her out because she couldn’t even pass Basic Combat?

_Oh god I’m going to fail I’m going to fail I’m going to fail_

Her hands were shaking and she felt like crying.

“-ani!”, Zero nudged her. “You okay?”

She was definitely not okay: they could all see that she was on the verge of a panic attack.

“Deep breaths”, Unruly whispered, placing a hand on her back, and she leaned into the contact.

Zero rested a hand on her left shoulder blade.

“It’s okay. It’s just like sparring, and you did just fine, remember? Floored Bee like no other!”

She huffed a laugh at the memory and tried again to calm herself down. They were right. Being nervous wasn’t going to help. She just had to do their best and deal with whatever the outcome was.

Just like that, another fight had ended.

“Next: CT-6450 and Luna.”

_FUCK_

Yeah, of course the universe would go all out on her today, why not? Fucking perfect...

She sighed and walked on the mat, staring blankly at 50, who was giving her an ‘I’m gonna beat yo ass’ look. Dani huffed. Suddenly there was no fear left, only a deep, deep, deep annoyance and desire to make him spit this teeth.

“Go.”

50 dived to tackle her and succeeded, sending them both to the ground. He looped his arms around her waist to hold her in place, but she just rolled on her stomach and wiggled her ass and legs to slip away from his grasp. He looked totally lost at how she had done that, but, like, there was literally no secret. Just wiggles. Luna kicked at his face, getting her heel against his mouth, and saw him spit to the side before grabbing her ankle and tugging. She dug her fingers into the mat, gained purchase and twisted her body to kick with her other leg and do a handstand before twisting upright, skin becoming red. Her heart still hammered inside her ribcage, and she was painfully aware of the abnormal aggressiveness she was feeling.

“Can you pull a punch?”, 50 mocked her, and she snarled at him, stepping closer.

He rose his arms to defend himself from the incoming attack, ready to grab her wrist and twist her into submission—

Dani’s hands moved, alright, but the punch never came. She kicked his tibia with all her might, and in his stance, he couldn’t react fast enough.

“Bold of you to assume I’m that predictable”, she huffed as she delivered the kick, right before his pained scream filled the gym and his leg crumpled beneath him.

He tugged at her sides and dug his fingers between her ribs, bringing her down with him.

“Of course you only know how to fight dirty...!”, he huffed as he twisted her so she would fall on her back, and he on top of her.

“Bold of you to assume”, she spat as she dug two fingers in his eyes.

He cried out and rolled away. Dani rolled in the opposite direction, wobbly getting up, breath harsh.

“Come on! Has the reg-born nothing else?”, he taunted.

“Bold of you”, she exhaled with dead eyes.

He growled and flung himself forwards to deliver a punch. Dani blocked it with her arms, the impact painful, but she took note of turning the moment into training to manage pain.

50 didn’t know what was going on. She wasn’t reacting to his taunts with immediate reactions, there wasn’t being an explosion of rage that he could use to his advantage, her eyes were just looking more and more dead, as if she didn’t care about anything—  And what was with her absurd answers?!

“You think you are better than us?!”, he snarled.

“Bold”

The word was a whisper that only he could have heard. A fire spiked deep inside her eyes, and 50 knew. Knew that he had gotten it wrong. His taunts DID work, they did awaken rage in her! She just... wasn’t impulsive.

Her punch collided with his stomach, packing an astonishing deal of strength, and he gasped for air, but managed to stay upright and dived to tackle her again, but he had barely any impulse. They fell clumsily to the mat and struggled to get rid of each other in a tangle of limbs. Dani started squirming her way out, and 50 grabbed at her pants to keep her from escaping, but he was met with wetness and a strange smell, and let go of her in his surprise.

Dani was ready to kick him in the face again when El-Les stopped them:

“Who is bleeding?!”, he yelped, and Luna froze where she sat, turning her head to look at 50: but he wasn’t bleeding, not from his nose and not from his mouth, and she was sure her punch hadn’t broken or pierced anything.

“Are you okay?”, she asked to him.

50 rose his gaze from his hand and turned his palm over her so she could see it.

“YOU are bleeding.”

Her eyes widened in shock as she checked her face: nose clean, mouth clean, so—

The feeling between her legs returned, and she remembered.

“Oh. OH. Uh, sorry for the mess—”, she apologised to the instructor, noticing the dark impressions left where she had been thrown on the mat and trying to unstick the fabric of her black plants from her skin.

“Why didn’t you say you were bleeding?!”, the alien asked, crouching beside her as her teammates crowded around her.

“I—The exam was today...!”

“Are you telling me that you were bleeding before you came?!”

“Yes, but—”

“CT-6450, escort her to the medbay—”

“They won’t be able to do anything there, it’s not an injury!”, she bite back.

“Watch. Your. Tone”, El-Les warned, but she was in no mood to behave.

“I only need to clean myself up and change into clean clothes, I don’t need an escort”, Dani grumbled, standing up.

Everybody around her made the gesture to steady her in case she wobbled, but she didn’t even looked in pain despite the considerable amount of blood on her pants.

“It’s just menstruation, okay? I go over this every month, there’s no danger, my compress must have been knocked off with the ruckus...”

“What’s a ‘menstruation’?”, Sal asked fearfully.

“It’s just some minor internal bleeding...!”, she grumbled, dusting herself off.

“You fought with internal bleeding?”, 50 mused, his jaw falling to the floor.

“A non-threatening internal bleeding!”, she punctuated, loosing her cool.

“Go to the medbay”, El-Les repeated.

“It will be a waste of time!”

“Go to the medbay, trooper! That’s an order!”, he yelled at her.

Dani flinched back, balling her fists and pressing her lips together. The hostility inside her cheered at the change to defy, but she just wasn’t in the mood for this: for getting in trouble with her instructor, for explaining what the period was. So she just turned around and left.

Soon, steps were trotting behind here.

“You fought me with internal bleeding?!”, he repeated.

“Get over it, 50!”, she snapped, not even turning to look at him.

“Bold”, he said, now walking beside her. Dani stared at him with an offended expression. Was he mocking her? “The name’s Bold”, he smirked, and seemed sincerely proud of it.

She snorted and rolled her eyes.

“How did you do it?”, he pressed, a hiss in his voice born from astonishment.

“I’m a lucky bastard and my period barely hurts. That’s all. Can’t do nothing about the bleeding, though.”

“Can’t the medics do something to stop it?”

“They can. But I don’t want them to.”

“What?! Why?!”

“Secondary effects!”, she snapped. “Listen, you don’t have to accompany me, you know? I’m not hurt, I don’t need help. I’ll go to the medbay as El-Les said and I will get a note from the doctor explaining what my period is and make him embarrassed. Now shoo, maybe you haven’t noticed but I’m not in the mood for chitchat!”

Bold came to a halt, frowning at her attitude.

“Right when I thought I was wrong about you, you show your true self!”

Dani didn’t even turn around, just raised her middle finger at him.

He didn’t know the meaning of the gesture.

Thirty minutes later she walked into the gym, wearing clean clothes and with a datapad in her hand, heading straight for El-Les.

“Are you patched up?”

She roughly shoved the datapad into his hands.

“Here you have the written explanation and signature of the medic that confirmed that the bleeding is because of menstruation, not that I needed it”, she grumbled, and the instructor was about to reply, but she went on: “Symptoms include haemorrhage due to the tearing of the inner walls of my uterus, that’s where babies are made in case you are wondering, “she added, looking at the clones, “that can last between three days and a week. Make that a week for me. Other symptoms include acute pain due to the muscular cramps that tear the flesh down, physical discomfort and mood swings due to hormones tied to the menstruation cycle. Said cycle happens once a month in most cases until an advanced age is reached. Make that around forty years for me. Summarized: I’m not dying, don’t push me. If you have more questions about menstruation ask me when I’m not feeling like beheading somebody. I’m tired. I’m taking the rest of the day off. Bye.”

She ranted, and left, not even in a hurry.

“...So she’s grumpy because of the bleeding?”

“Hell, I would be writhing on the floor if one of my organs were tearing itself down...”

“What a pain in the ass to bleed every month for a week...”

“Looks kinda badass that she is bleeding out and still acts like nothing...”

“Wait, is she having a baby? Or not?”

El-Les was just reading off the datapad, squinting at the full explanation.

“Oh, Force. Poor humans.”

 

“Clear the hallway”, the Kamino Guard said, interrupting the group’s conversation.

“What? Why?”, Dani asked out of reflex.

“You don’t have clearance to know. Clear the hallway, ASAP.”

She was frowning and already taking a gulp of air to reply, but Bee grabbed her arm and tugged carefully but firmly.

“Of course, vod. We’ll be on our way”, he said, tugging again at Dani’s arm.

She shut her mouth and let herself be led away. Bee let go of her as soon as they turned a corner.

“Not a good idea to pick fights when they come to you like this, mate”, he shrugged apologetically.

“It’s okay. You’re right. I’m not angry.”

Bee nodded at her and faced forwards, diving back into the conversation with Zero and Cabur. Dani looked at Unruly, who was ride beside her. He was looking at her through the corner of his eye, giving a smirk she already knew too well. They silently turned, going to peek through the corner and into the forbidden corridor.

“The hallway is clear. We are not in it”, he said, as a matter of fact.

“Absolutely. They didn’t say to clear THIS hallway.”

“Exactly! We are doing nothing wrong. Just chilling.”

“Zero feet apart ‘cause we’re best friends”, she sang-sung.

They ducked when they saw shadows nearing them. In fact, Dani was keeping taps on the group that was coming down the hallway and pulled Unruly back when they got close enough. The first row of Guards stared at them, but they just blinked back innocently, as if they were surprised to see them. The pair didn’t move an inch, just watched, so the Guards didn’t say anything to them, probably too busy leading the parade. The Guards were disposed in a square shape, and at the centre of it, wrists cuffed...

“Who is he?”, Luna asked in a whisper, her eyes nailed on the clone prisoner.

“Oh, shit. I think that’s Slick!”, he whispered back. “I heard they caught him selling intel to Asajj Ventress, the Sith apprentice. They say he gave them enough information that soon there will be an attack on Kamino, but at the moment it’s just a rumour.”

“So, the Separatists?”

“Yeah.”

Dani craned her neck to watch the committee go.

“What’s going to happen to him?”, she asked softly, already imagining the answer.

“He committed high treason, so my only guess is... interrogation and termination.”

Luna shuddered.

They stood there in silence for a small eternity, the air growing heavy with their altered breathing as the only sound.

“We have to help him”, she breathed, turning to her friend.

He exhaled slowly, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“I don’t know, Dani... He— He sold us out. We are his brothers...!”

“What was he getting. What was he getting from his deal with that Asajj?”

“Uhm, money, I think...”

“Money. Money so he would have something. So he would be able to leave. To be free”, she mused. “It’s not fair”, she said louder. “He only wanted to leave.”

“...You really want to brake him out.”

She turned to face Unruly.

“Yes.”

He regarded her for a moment with an intense gaze. She did not falter, nor flinch.

“I don’t really need to know the answer”, he sighed. “But: why?”

“Because you all have the right to be free”, she answered without hesitation. “If Slick is so desperate that he resorted to endanger his brothers, then I believe that this is his last cry for help before he shatters. If I can help him, I have to.”

They held their gazes.

“This isn’t going to be easy...”

“This is going to be a goddamn walk in the park! We just need a distraction for whoever is guarding him, a set of red clothes and something to cut his hair so he won’t be recognised in a sea of faces! No offense.”

“Non taken. Also, a ship to get off planet.”

“Yeah. Good point.”

“Aaaaaaaaand... how are we gonna do that?”

“We can use one of my spare red shirts and pants. If for any reason somebody asks me why I don’t have it, I’ll just say that it got stained and I threw it away.”

“Quite plausible”, Unruly nodded.

“About the ships... I don’t know about that, guess we’ll have to do some scouting and stealing? Maybe with sneaking on board without the pilots noticing will suffice.”

“I wouldn’t do that. If whoever owns the ship has business with Kamino they have all the numbers to return him if they find him out.”

“Plain stealing it will be”, she shrugged.

“And the distraction for the escort?”

“I have a half-cooked plan”, she said, her body language turning into the same she had when she was rambling about nature or politics... She was excited about this. “It’s literally all-or-nothing so if it works it will be veeeeeery swift, if not, there will be a bump and we’ll have to think of another distraction.”

“What will we do about the cameras? It’s a long way from the cells to the hangar.”

“What if I told you that I can make sure that those won’t be a problem?”

“I’d answer that that would be great, but how...?”

“Just, trust me with this, okay? If I say I can do it, I can do it.”

“...Alright. So. Cameras won’t be a problem. Guards won’t be either, because we’ll be playing as if we’re just friends walking around. We’ll drop him in a ship with hyperdrive, and we’ll return to our duties as if nothing had happened. Correct?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan in general”, she nodded with a pleased smile.

“When do we do it?”

“As soon as possible, I guess”, she shrugged.

“We are not doing it now”, Unruly said, voice firm.

“Of course not! Too soon!”, she huffed, a little annoyed that he had thought she would launch herself head first. “I’m going to try and talk to him”, she said immediately after.

“What?! How are you going to do that? He will be guarded!”

“Well, I have my methods! And if I don’t get to talk to him, at least I will have done some scouting!”

“If you get caught—”

“I won’t, okay? I won’t. I’m good at this, I swear. And if I get caught I can always weasel out of the situation. It’s you who has to be careful with this”, Dani hissed.

It seemed like he was going to reply, but doubt filled his features and he sighed.

“...I understand. Meet you at your room before dinner?”

“I’ll be there”, she nodded.

“Be careful.”

“You too.”

They held each other’s gaze for a moment more before Unruly flung forwards and hugged her. She grasped him tightly, appreciating the comfort and safety he made her feel. Dani watched him go, and as soon as he turned a corner, she cloaked herself.

Finding Slick was not a problem: she had practically wrapped herself around his signature. The group was still moving. They... They weren’t going to the holding cells. She squeezed her way with passing staff through doors she wasn’t allowed to open, and every corridor she walked was filled with more Kaminoans and droids than clones, if there were any at all. The air was starting to feel strangely heavy, and Dani worried that if she became unnerved maybe others would be able to feel her presence even if she was hiding. Still, she decided not to turn around.

By the time she reached the door to where Slick was being held, her heart was hammering. She could feel it through the Force. She knew what they were doing to him, but she also knew seeing it with her own eyes, hearing it with her own ears, was going to change her. The Force was only giving her a small taste of the cruelty behind the door.

Her heart kept drumming as she waited for somebody to open the door. Dani leaned against the wall, doing everything she knew to calm herself down: deep breaths, happy thoughts, dissection of feelings and planning for a variety of possible outcomes; plus indulging in some positive thinking to compensate for the horror that was filtering through the wall and faintly scratching at her.

The door swished open an undetermined period of time later, what she thought a female Kaminoan stepping outside. Dani startled at the sound and looked up at her, but she went unnoticed, so she took the chance and slipped inside.

It all turned a blur.

She smelled the blood and chemicals and her eyes trained on Slick, tied down in an uncomfortable position in what could be hardly called a chair, red dripping from his mouth and breathing frantic. A Kaminoan loomed over him with a scalpel, and _OH GOD OH GOD OH FUCK OH—_

All control slipped away from Dani, and something unprecedented happened: the power on Kamino failed. The Kaminoan in the room jerked in surprise, exclaiming something in their language before setting down their tools and walking out.

Dani was balled in a corner: her cloaking had fallen but she had managed to stay hidden in the shadows left by the emergency lights by sheer luck. Her eyes stared at the closed door in fear. She was spiralling down in a panic, but she saw on the corner of her eyes Slick trying to shift to a more comfortable position and her focus turned solely on him. She got to her feet with surprising swiftness and moved to rest a hand on the base of his neck, her hand dampening with his sweat.

“Can you hear me?”, she asked, gulping and crouching next to him, trying to make eye contact. She had had to make a great effort to don’t ask if he was okay. He evidently wasn’t.

He tried to jerk away from her touch with a grunt, and she retracted her hand immediately, eyes big and fearful.

“I’m sorry!”, she apologized on reflex.

“Who... are you...?”, he growled with mistrust, showing his teeth at her and glaring daggers despite the clear signs of pain.

“I’m Da—Ducky”, she didn’t really know what had made her introduce herself with her nickname. But, well, she wasn’t lying. “I want to help you.”

He jerked harder in his restraints, startling her and making her fall on her ass.

“Hah”, he huffed despite the situation. “Good one... They sent... the worst liar... on Kamino...”

Slick obviously didn’t trust her, and something told her that words had very little value at the moment. Slowly, Dani returned to her crouch beside him, and rested her hand on his shoulder again, breathing deeply.

_Sympathy nurture good intentions_ and _hope_ flooded Slick’s body and he gasped at the warmth and out-of-place comfort those brought. The pain receded considerable and he slumped, dizzy at the sudden change. Dani stood up, gently holding his cheek on a hand as to not strain his neck further, and carefully stroke his shoulders as she gave a bit of herself to him and enhanced it.

“Better?”, she asked softly, gently massaging his hair.

He craned his neck to look at her, eyes full of confusion, and she dropped to her knees so he didn’t have to make an effort.

“Are you crying... for me...?”, he asked, eyes troubled.

Ducky sniffed and rushed to dry her tears and snot.

“I have a half-assed plan to get you off Kamino, but I need to know that you will cooperate and that you will be alive when I come for you”, she explained, managing to keep a steady voice.

“And then... what... be your dog... that’s not... freedom...”, he shook his head weakly.

She pressed her lips.

“Once you leave, you won’t ever hear of me again unless you seek me out. I only ask a favour of you, but if you decide not to do it, I won’t have any way to know your whereabouts.”

“Ah... there it is...”, he huffed dryly, glaring at her.

“You had contacts with the Separatists.”

“I did... Ventress...”

“Get away from the Sith. But I need Separatists contacts of my own, and your best bet is fleeing into their space as a refugee.”

“What if... I refuse... right now?”

“I’m still getting you out”, she replied without missing a beat.

His brow furrowed again in confusion.

“Why...?”

“Because you want to be free.”

“And—?”

“Yeah, that’s it, that’s all the reason I need to do it, geez, what’s your damage?!”, she clenched her fists for a moment, managing her frustration.

He huffed and shook his head again.

“You are... an idiot...”

“This idiot is going to get you out of here. Are you in? Please, tell me you are in. It’s going to be so awkward if I have to drag you to your freedom...”

Slick gave an incredulous huff, the closest thing he could pull off as a laugh at the moment.

“Okay... I’m in...”

Dani’s chest filled with hope at his answer.

“Alright”, she nodded harshly. “I’ll get you out as soon as I can. I only need to secure a transport for you and I will get you out, I promise!”, she said, a hand back on his shoulder, squeezing lightly.

“Just... go...”, he mumbled, eyelids dropping.

Dani found it incredible hard to do so. She carefully stopped supporting his head as not to hurt him, stepped backwards with hesitation, heart aching at having to leave Slick this way. A part of her clawed and thrashed for her to get him out of there right this instant, and her logical side barely had a grasp over it, but with a deep breath, she managed to turn towards the door. The power came back on as she crossed the portal, and she hurried to get out of that nightmarish wing.

 

“We have to get them out, like, YESTERDAY”, Dani hissed at Unruly.

They were in her bathroom, the most isolated place they had to talk.

“That bad”, he mused, and it was not a question. “Well, once I left you to your ‘methods’ I went to the hangar and made small chat with the workers there. There’s a supply ship that is due to leave tomorrow, right before our afternoon training. It’s small because it carries very specific scientific tools, so he should be able to pilot it and book it out of here.”

“Okay! Okay, yeah, yeah, that’s good! I have my spare set of clothes here...”

“Will it fit him?”

“Of course it will fit him, it’s standard issue!”

“Alright, alright! I was just wondering.”

“The only thing that I do with my red set is tie the belt tighter. My blacks are the ones made specially.”

“That’s it, then. Tomorrow after lunch.”

“It still feels like too much time...”, she shook her head, eyes low, and hand compulsively scratching her hair.

“It’s the best we can do”, Unruly mused.

“I can’t even— if they are doing this to Slick, how many more have suffered in the same way?”, she asked, eyes full of pain.

“Don’t do this, Dani. Don’t got there”, he shook his head slowly.

“But how I supposed to TURN AWAY from it?”, she sobbed, tears streaming.

Unruly sighed and pulled her to his chest, and she clawed at the fabric on his back, letting the horror and suffering out.

 

Dani did not have lunch.

“You should have eaten. You are going to faint during the afternoon training”, Unruly nudged her.

“I wasn’t hungry”, she replied, and it was true. She knew that she would have thrown up for sure if something that wasn’t water touched her tongue.

They were nearing the wing where Slick was being held.

“You sure the cameras won’t be a problem?”, he asked, a bit unsure.

“I’m already taking care of it”, she replied without looking at him, and it was true: she had been cloaking them from sensors since they left the mess hall. “I’ll sneak in, pick him up, rendezvous with you and we’ll escort him to the hangar. Then we go to training and act dumb if questioned.”

“Sounds like a solid plan for me. But are you sure you want to go in alone?”

“I already know the way, and the less we are, the easier it will be go undetected”, she argued.

_And if you come with me and we run into someone and I have to cloak us I’ll have to explain you that I can use the Force to do weird things and I can’t bear the idea that you won’t talk to me ever again for hiding it from you._

“Okay. I’ll be waiting around the entrance, then”, he sighed, and discreetly passed her a small, compact razor machine.

She took it and let it slip through the neck of her shirt and to her waist. In the small of her back, the spare set of red clothes was stored.

“Be careful”, Unruly said once more as they got to the final corner.

“Will be”, she nodded, and they merged in a quick hug before she turned, steps firm.

Once more, she waited for somebody to open the door and slipped inside. Dani kept a quick pace as she tugged at Slick’s Force-signal, making sure he knew she was on her way. She dodged Kaminoans without trouble, and soon she was back in front of the cell’s door. Now, there really was no time to wait for somebody to open that door, so she put a new little Force trick to work.

She took her presence, the one that she was so good at hiding, and placed it outside her body, inside the room.

She heard something fall to the floor and clank loudly, plus an exclamation in a language she didn’t understand. Luna plastered herself at the right side of the door and pulled her presence outside and to the left. The door swished open almost immediately, two Kaminoans peeking out anxiously and they both turned to the left, chasing Dani’s presence.

She slipped inside and walked straight for Slick.

_Oh, fuck_

He was way worse than the day before.

“Slick”, she hissed, and went to carefuly shake his shoulder. “Slick!”

He took a rattling breath, head jerking and eyes struggling to open.

There was no way they could play it as three friends walking around.

“It’s okay, I got you”, she tried to soothe him as she fumbled with his restraints. “It’s over, I’m getting you out.”

He had been totally stripped of his clothes, and she wrestled for a moment between taking a moment to dress him up and save his modesty or just booking it out of there. She decided to slip on the pants as gently and swiftly as she could, and then took his arm and pulled upwards.

“Come on, Slick. You promised you would cooperate, remember?”, she asked with urgency.

He got his feet under him and reached for Dani’s shoulder. She held to his wrist and waist, slowly pulling him up.

“You’re doing great”, she reassured him, planting a soft kiss on his hair. No point in cutting it to try to be discreet when he could barely stand. Dani sighed, mentally preparing herself for what was to come, and passing _comfort_ to the clone through the Force. She could lessen the pain and heal some of his cuts without problem, but some of his wounds would take too much energy from her, and she needed it to completely cloak three persons, so she had to be careful with that.

“Let’s go. One step after the other. We’ll be okay, just follow me. My friend is waiting for us, he will help us get you to the hangar.”

Dani pulled him along, suddenly very grateful of all those months gaining muscle strength in the gym with the Tongue Batch. It was still quite an effort to drag somebody while hiding from cameras and the few people walking around the corridors, but at least she had a chance. Slick was pretty out of it, he didn’t even question why they weren’t trying to be sneaky, but at least he had enough strength to walk, if not with her help.

An alarm honked just as they were reaching the exit to the holding wing. Dani startled and had to take a moment to take a deep breath and keep her concentration, doing her best to not let panic take over her.

_Panicking is dying panicking is dying panicking is dying THAT’S NOT HELPING YOU DUMBASS_

So she shut down any thought that wasn’t _keep cloaking_ and _keep walking_. Dani slapped the button to open the door to the wing from the inside, and had to jerk Slick and herself out of the way as four members of the Kaminoan Guard barrelled inside.

“Sorry!”, she whispered to Slick, who was gasping for breath after the sudden movement, and readjusted her grip on him to drag him into the wider hallway.

“Dani!”, Unruly whispered-shouted from a corner, and walked quickly to them, already reaching for Slick’s other arm. “What—?”

“He’s too hurt to play it off, let’s head to the hangar.”

“There’s no way the Guard won’t see us!”, he hissed, eyes wide in shock.

“Unruly”, she said, taking a steading breath. “I can hide us from them. All you have to do is be quiet and don’t look anybody in the eyes.”

“What do you—?”

She reached to cover his mouth with her free hand as a patrol exited from the corridor Unruly had come for and entered the wing behind them. They had clearly been in their line of sight, but non of them had paid them any mind. Unruly’s eyes became even wider as Dani retreated her hand and he stared at her.

“I need your help”, she pleaded with her eyes.

He gulped down and nodded, his confusion expression turning into focus as they both pulled Slick towards the hangar.

True to her word, they kept their gazes low and stayed out of the way of whoever came across them, and nobody spared them a glance. Unruly slowly got used to it, his steps gaining confidence as his eyes stopped darting around. They passed the patrol guarding the hangar’s entrance, twisting a bit to slip between them.

Dani eyed them from the corner of her eyes.

“Pst!”, she called Unruly’s attention. “I’m going to make sure they stay away for a while. Go on without me, I’ll be back”, she whispered, slowly passing all of Slick’s weight to him.

He nodded and took his brother. Dani turned on her heels and pushed the presence she had been hiding in the corridor they had come from.

“Hey! What’s that?”, one of the guards startled, raising his blaster. “I think I saw somebody!”

“Yeah, I saw it too! In that corner!”

“Stay alert, guys! Let’s check it out!”, their Lieutenant ordered, signalling them to move along the corridor.

Dani bolted around with a satisfied smile and ran to the ship Unruly had described to her before they started with their mission.

A thought was clouding her mind, but it wasn’t clicking yet when she heard a commotion inside the shuttle. She gasped and broke into a sprint, coming to a hard stop and clinging to its entrance.

Slick was slumped to a side, face scrunched up and a wave of pain emanating from him as he struggled to breath through it. Right at the centre of the crowded cargo space was Unruly, fists raised and panting, eyes fixed on the slumped form of an alien in front of him.

“What happened?”, she asked, placing a hand on her friend’s shoulder.

He startled and turned around to look at her with scared eyes.

“He—“, he swallowed down. “He saw me.”

Her eyes flew to the unconscious form, thoughts halting for a second before they restarted twice as fast.

“Okay. Okay. It’s okay”, she muttered, glancing at Slick to make sure he was holding on. “You have to leave”, she said to Unruly.

He said nothing, maybe too shocked to voice an answer or a question.

“He saw you. I hid us as well as I could but there’s still a chance they could track you down. And Slick is in no shape to pilot a ship”, she explained with effort, fingers trembling. “They’ll kill you if they find out.”

Unruly’s breathing was heavy, his eyes starting to dart around. Sign that he was afraid.

“Hey, hey”, she called, stepping forwards to take his hand. “You’ll be okay, you hear me? I know it’s scary but it’s your best bet, listen: you have to fly to Separatist space, okay? Tell them you fled from Kamino, tell them you are there as refugees and stay away from the Sith, okay? I need you to find someone you trust and tell them that soon there will be a new General in the GAR that disagrees with how the Republic treats the clones and wants to siphon them out of the army, okay?”, he blinked at her, “Unruly, please! This is important! I need your help so I can save more of your brothers!”

Her hands are now squeezing his arms, her eyes wide in expectation.

“What about you?”, he exhaled, voice shaking.

“I’ll stay. I have to become a General”, she replied, and swallowed awkwardly. “I’m so sorry that I hid things from you. You deserved to know everything about me but I’m a stupid paranoid and when I considered to tell you it had been months and I thought you’d hate me! I need you to understand that I trust you. That I love you”, she pleaded.

Unruly’s arms moved suddenly, knocking her hands aside. She was completely defenceless for whatever he was about to do—

He hugged her. He enveloped her in his arms and pressed her lightly to his chest, as he had always done. Dani wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her face against his shoulder.

“I should have never lied to you...”, she sobbed.

“Well. You never actively denied that you could turn invisible, so, technically, you never lied...”, she felt him shrug.

She chuckled weakly, and sighed as she felt him calm down a bit. They stepped back, hands on each other’s shoulders, and stared into their eyes.

“We won’t be seeing each other in a long time, won’t we?”, he asked sadly.

Dani shook her head slowly, tears falling.

Unruly pulled her to another hug.

“I’ll miss you”, he sobbed.

“I’ll miss you too”, she said back, and fished the razor machine, thrusting it into his hands. “Go become a hairdresser or something.”

He laughed dryly, and she forced herself to step away, and pulled out the remaining red shirt of the small of her back, going to kneel by Slick and cover him with it in a last attempt at comforting him.

His hand suddenly grasped her wrist with a strength she did not expect him to have at the moment, and Dani gasped as he pulled her close.

“The invasion”, he said with effort. “It—It will happen... They are... coming...”

“Okay”, she said after a moment, the implications sinking in. “Okay”, she repeated, and softly patted his shoulder before leaning her forehead against his in what she had learned to be a gesture of affection among clones. She stood up and waved around Unruly to grab the ship’s owner’s ankle and drag him outside.

“Take care!”, she called out. “Of him and yourself!”

“Survive the war!”, Unruly called back, the ramp of the ship slowly closing. “I’ll never forgive you if I don’t get to meet General Dani Luna!”

She gave him a smile, and he smiled back as the ramp closed.

Dani dragged the unconscious alien behind a pile of crates, made sure that her cloaking was up and booked it out of there as the ship took off. A terrifying thought clawed at her mind: what if they needed some sort of permission or code to leave? What if they tried to gun them down? What if they died because of her?

She couldn’t have that. She needed—She needed—Power, the guns worked with power, so she needed to cause a blackout. It couldn’t be so hard, right? She had caused one at a small scale just the day before when she freaked out, and oh boy, was she freaking out right now, she surely could pull it off, because if she found she couldn’t she would freak out even harder, and oh boy—

Luna found a panel in a deserted side-corridor and teared it out, staring at the wires and lights and switches. Her hands twitched forward, but years of watching C.S.I. with her mother paid off and she jerked the limb back.

_No leaving finger prints on crime scenes_ , a slightly blurred face and voice sang-sung in her mind with a smile.

She just stood there for a moment, mind buzzing and barely repressed by her logical thought. So she shut it down.

Anxiety squeezed her brain and hurt and tears streamed as she pictured the shuttle being shot down. Shot down by clones. Would they celebrate after, thinking they did what they had to do? Would they shut down themselves, knowing that they were ordered to kill their brothers? How many people would she get killed in that way?

A spark flared somewhere in her being that Dani couldn’t pinpoint, but it burst out of here, sending her to the floor on her ass and disappearing through the wires.

And for the second day in a row, there was a power outage on Tipoca City.

Ducky stood up shakily and ran away to her room, where she quickly changed into her blacks and slipped her wristband on. She eyes her phone _I’m going to tell Yaddle about this when I’m sure it will be safe_ , she thought, and closed her eyes for a moment to check that she wasn’t cloaking herself from cameras anymore before heading for the training room. She walked into formation and put her helmet on.

“Where’s CT-6454?”, El-Les asked directly at her.

“I don’t know”, she answered before passing out.

 

It was weird.

No rumours came that Slick had escaped. They told them that the alarm had gone off due to the same issues that had caused the blackout.

Unruly wasn’t even mentioned again after El-Les went to speak with the bosses, a Kaminoan called Lama Su or something like that. The rest of her squad were uneasy about the fact that one of their members had disappeared, but didn’t dare speak up in front of their superiors.

Dani was silent and distant, following Sal and the others when they invited her to hang out but barely contributing to anything. It was easy to assume that it was because her best friend had gone missing. And it was the truth. She cried at irregular intervals, and the instructors had the politeness to ignore it until it went away. Shaak Ti flinched at the dread and loneliness she emanated, like an abandoned puppy. In a certain way, she was.

They finally communicated them that an invasion was imminent.

Luna was instructed to go to one of the safe rooms deep in the city, away from where the fighting was expected. Despite the hollowness she had been feeling for the past days, something inside her twitched, but did not completely click. It did when she was about the walk into the bunker, as if she had been asleep or entirely focused on something and she just remembered that she had left a chicken in the oven.

“The Tongue Batch”, she mused, eyes going wide.

She ran off before the guards could stop her, shamelessly Force-sprinting across the city, eyes unfocused as she mapped out all Force-signals and clusters of electricity fifty meters around and immediately above and under her. A childish part of her mind clapped that it was like a videogame, and she had to avoid the electricity and reach the light of the children to win. The part of her mind that had been born on Kamino mused that that was just the easy part. She avoided as much droids as she could, but didn’t waste time taking longer routes when there was too many of them: she just cloaked herself and ran past.

Dani skidded to a halt before she could be caught in a crossfire. She huffed to herself: she had been busy making sure a Commando droid hadn’t seen her and tailed her and had neglected to watch her sides. She was about to turn around when a type of scream she had never heard before froze her in place, eyes flying to meet its source, and she saw a clone sprawl on the floor right in front of the corridor where she was. A scorch mark smoked from his helmet. Ducky went to her knees and reached out for him, but there was no life there.

Ice slipped all the way from her brain to her heart.

Her hands jerked and went to grab the discarded blaster. Must have been the training kicking in, because her mind was still trying to process that the clone in front of her was dead. She was about to throw up her own heart, but a pang of fear resonated in the Force, and before she knew it she was running again, blaster in hand.

And she ran. She ran faster and faster, tracking down Wing’s, Clock’s, 53’s signals. She passed corpses and deactivated droids, feet barely touching the ground.

Dani skidded around a corner, a heavy door at the end of it. There were droids by it, a drilling sound filling the corridor. She came to a halt and shot the one operating the drill in the head. It’s five companions turned around towards the danger, but they saw nothing. The one at the centre of the group suddenly hovered into the air and it looked around, startled, as the others stared at it.

“Wwwwwwwwwwhat are you doing?”, one asked, clearly confused.

“I—“, the one levitating began, but then they all heard the increasing vibrations coming from within in. “Uh oh...”

The droid exploded, metal shards sinking into metal and knocking over the whole squad. Dani stepped closer and gunned them down before those still functional could stand up.

She went to knock on the door, but the droids had managed to drill through it.

“Hello?”, she called before trying to lean over the edge. “Don’t shoot! I’m an ally!”, she rose her hands, still holding the blaster, and stepped inside.

Four blasters were aiming at her, all wielded by kids.

“Dani!!!”, they gasped, and a couple of them ran to hug her legs.

“Are you all okay?”, she asked, frantic, eyes darting as she checked presences around them. They were all taller than the last time she saw them, but hell, they were still kids. “Why aren’t there adults with you?”

“We had some guards, but they were called for reinforcements”, Wing explained. “But soon after they left the droids started drilling.”

“Okay. Okay, we’ll be holing up here, understood? Everybody take cover and eyes on the entrance”, she said, as she positioned herself behind a downed bench, blaster resting on it. The armed cadets mimicked her. “If somebody drops a gun somebody else has to pick it up immediately, understood?”, she could feel a large group of droids coming their way. “Don’t do anything stupid, and by that I mean standing up or running out of cover when it’s clearly not safe!”, she snarled, because she was already picturing the kids being shot down in front of her. “We’ll be okay”, she promised, and if the Force didn’t help her to fulfil that promise then she was going to become a Sith out of spite.

Ah, well, that was probably the most common Sith origin story.

Dani was facing the entrance, finger on the trigger and ready to gun down whatever came, doing her best to ignore the tension in the room and the weight on her shoulders, when a gentle presence patted her back. She checked the distance the droids were at and decided that she could spare a minute.

53 was looking at her, eyes worried.

“Hey”, she greeted him, voice and expression going soft. “What’s up?”

“Are we going to die?”, he asked, and her heart shattered to pieces.

“NO”, she replied firmly, but it lost a bit of effect because she was crying. Luna pulled him to a hug so he didn’t have to see her tears. When she pushed him back, her face was dry. “You are going to be fine as long as you stay down, okay? We can take care of the droids just fine.”

She couldn’t spare a second more to soothe him. She pushed him to cover and turned, shooting an arm off of a droid.

The crossfire seemed to last days, weeks, months. They were holding quite well: the only casualty at the moment was a blaster wound in Wing’s hand, but he had been quickly dragged to safety and replaced by his brothers.

Still, the waves of droids didn’t seem to have a name. Dani pulled the trigger, but no heat came from it.

_Shit!_

The droids were advancing, and the four cadets weren’t able to shoot them all down. She became hyperaware of her own heartbeat, her fingers twitched, trying to pull a trigger that wasn’t there anymore, trying to do SOMETHING—

Well, she couldn’t pull a trigger, but she could pull a trick.

Dani bolted up, hands stretched out and palms pointing to the entrance, and focused her will on _STAY OUT!!!_

A Force-barrier covered the drilled entrance, blaster fire going cold against it. A newly found power: once that she had practiced before but had improved exponentially since Unruly left and Dani’s heart started going cold. Yaddle had theorized that the barrier was growing stringer and thicker because she was isolating herself, and warned her that using it too much would eventually make her detached from everything and everybody.

She couldn’t have that. That was the whole reason why she had refused to stay with the Jedi. She didn’t want that. She wanted to be free to show affection, prove that she cared! She didn’t want to stop feeling love!

“Cold mind, warm heart”, she muttered to herself like a mantra. “Cold mind, warm heart. Cold mind, warm heart—”

And the barrier held, fuelled not by the need of isolation, but by the wish to protect those behind her. The droids were pilling at the other side, but once in front of it they couldn’t do much but push, and it wasn’t proving very fruitful.

The Tongue Batch gasped at the sight. Those armed had stopped firing, but were ready to get back at it if Dani faltered.

There was quite a great number of droids on the corridor, but at least no more were arriving. They just had to wait until reinforcements arrived, and they could gun them down from behind—

Something happened. A deep pain stabbed the side of Dani’s head, and she cried out, recognizing it. It was the pain she had felt two years after her father left. The pain she had felt when her mother died. It was like a tidal wave of sadness and a sense of loss that threatened to knock her down and leave her there to rot—

_99 is dead_

She wasn’t sure how she knew that. She hadn’t even been watching him and _oh, god, 99, why didn’t I come for you—_ but she just knew that he was gone. Gone from the Force, gone from what she could sense.

The Force-barrier dissipated.

_99 is dead. 99 is dead. 99 is dead—_

And the children behind her would be dead soon. Their small corpses would litter the floor until somebody would come over and just pile them and... and what? Burn them? Throwing them in a dumpster without a care?

“Dani!”, high pitched, scared voices called from behind her.

A spark of rage turned the despair into a blazing wildfire.

Her arms twitched and she stepped forwards, straightening in front of what could easily have been her firing squad.

Nobody saw it, but her eyes burned yellow as she shoot her fingers forward and brutal lighting erupted from them and jumped from droid to droid all along the corridor, scorching plating and melting circuits as she screamed her rage out.

The electricity died out and she fell to her knees, eyes returning to normal, and she panted, frantically scanning for the minimum twitch that could indicate that they weren’t safe, that the kids weren’t safe—

Small hands rested on her trembling arms.

“We won’t tell anybody”, Clock said very seriously, before slowly wrapping his arms around her.

That’s how the reinforcements found them later: the Tongue Batch sitting around a still shaking Dani, stances clearly defensive. Shaak Ti went personally to collect her, and the future General reassured them before following her with wobbly steps, wrapped in a blanket she had been given.

 

“You saved a whole batch” Taun We said, gratitude clear in her voice when she went to visit Dani in the medbay. “We would like to offer you a special decoration for—”

“I don’t want a medal”, she cut her off weakly. “It’s enough of a merit to promote me to the next phase of my training?”

The Kaminoan considered it for a moment.

“I will have to talk about it with your instructors, but I am positive that it is enough to do so, if that’s what you wish.”

“It is”, Luna nodded weakly, too exhausted to stay awake.

 

Parasecs away, the Sith Lord smiled.


	21. Hallelujah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Easter eggs and forshadowing? In MY fic? It's more likely than you think

“Have you seen the cadets? They look so cute, marching through the hallways...”

“I know, right? Can’t believe we were just like them just a few years ago... I see they aren’t running out of new hairstyles, either.”

_Wait what_

Dani turned on her heels.

“What cadets?”, she called out to Maps and Match.

The two troopers halted their patrol route with a slight startle and turned around too to face her, since they had been walking in opposite directions, and exchanged a glance that irradiated confusion even through their helmets.

“Uh... The ones that are currently visiting _The Unruly_. It’s like one of those school trips you told us about”, Match explained.

Dani’s face was like an abstract paining of emotions, and her mind, a shrieking mess.

“I didn’t know about this. Does Kasta know about this?”, she asked, containing her urge to scream.

“I am certain he does, sir”, Maps nodded.

They both could feel Luna’s astonishment and slight murder intent, but they weren’t worried. She rarely snapped to someone who didn’t deserve it, and when it happened it only implied a lot of yelling, only for her to seek out her victim and apologize for hours.

“Okay. Okay, thank you”, she dismissed them, and as they went on with their patrol she smashed a button on her wristcom. “Kasta.”

“Yes, Luna?”

“Why are there kids on our warship?”, she asked through clenched teeth.

“Well, I’m not a big fan either, but it’s part of the standard training to visit working Star Cruisers to learn the dynamics on board. Don’t worry, they are scheduled to leave in a couple days. They might want to ask you questions if they see you, though. Do whatever you want about that.”

“I thought our division was, like, top secret. And we are hosting school trips?”

“We’re top secret to the civilians, not those who might end up working under us. Is that all?”, he asked, as if he was bored of the conversation.

“One more thing.”

“...Well?”

“WHY ARE THERE KIDS ON OUR WARSHIP?!”, the shout echoed through the corridors.

Kasta had already hung up.

Dani sighed, exasperated, and considered her course of action. There were children on her ship, which made her anxiousness drastically escalate because SHIT, what of they were attacked and something exploded? She was practically useless in space battles other than support to the pilots—

Okay, okay, maybe that was a too apocalyptic way of thinking, there was no reason as to why today had to be _The Unruly_ ’s final day, so she took a deep breath.

_Okay. Okay. There’s kids here. So let’s give them a pleasant experience_

She went to her room and gathered her remaining stash of candy before going out to seek them out. Not a difficult task for her: she sensed them visiting the barracks and went to intercept them as they came out.

Ducky smiled automatically at the kids and their guardian.

“At-ten-tion!”, he called, and the children halted and straightened. “General present!”

“At ease”, she said calmly as she walked towards them. “I apologise, I have just been told that you were here. If I had know, I would have come to greet you”, she continued with her gentlest voice.

“Ah, thank you, sir, but we understand you have duties to attend to”, he replied, all politeness, if not sparkled with pleased surprise.

“May I know your names?”

“Uhm, I’m Tik, sir”, he stuttered a bit.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Dani Luna. You probably already knew that, but...”, she shrugged with a huffed laugh, and he gave her an amused snort.

She gave one of her most radiant smiles and turned to the cadets.

“Hello! I brought some candies for you”, and she unzipped her backpack to take out the sweets.

The kids gasped softly with round eyes, but glanced at their guardian.

“You can have it if one of you can answer this question: who are the two highest authorities on a Star Destroyer?”

A blond cadet with messy hair raised his hand on the front row.

“The General and the Admiral, sir!”

“So unless the Admiral says something about it, you can have the candy”, Tik nodded at Dani, and she nodded her approbation as she stepped forwards to divide the sweets.

“And even if he said anything you could still eat it. Kasta can come whine about it to me later”, she huffed, hands rested on her hips as the cadets devoured the snacks. “So. Have you guys chosen a name yet?”, she asked as she leaned on the wall, giving her most laidback vibes, hands hidden inside the pocket of her black hoodie.

“I’m Jumper!”

“I’m Talon!

“The name’s Spade!”

“I am Cloud!

“I’m Pillow!”

“I didn’t chose my name”, the last said, eyes bright.

“Oh, here we go again...” Cloud muttered, visibly annoyed, and the rest of his group seemed annoyed too.

Dani cocked her head, frowning.

“What? It’s true!”, the first pouted.

“No, you are just making it up!”

“You are just jealous because I have a mom and she gave me a name!”

“Bull!”

“Hey!”, Luna snarled, and they all hushed immediately. Her expression was hard as she stared at Cloud, but it melted away as she turned to the still unnamed clone. “So. What’s the name your mom gave you?”, she asked encouragingly.

“Aleluia.”

Dani froze.

“Dumbass”, Talon muttered. “We don’t have moms.”

“YOU are a dumbass!”, Aleluia screeched. “I have a mom and she sang to me and gave me my name!”

“Cadets!”, Tik said, severe. “You will behave in front of your superiors!”

_There was a time when you let me know_

_What’s really going on below_

_But now you never show it to me do ya?_

_But remember when I moved in you_

_And the holy dove was moving too_

_And every breath we drew was Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

All eyes grew wider as Dani kneeled down to sing, gaze fixed on Aleluia. The emotion she was singing with draw the attention of those resting in the barracks and walking around, and soon the corridor was crowded with an audience, tho they kept a respectful distance.

_Maybe there’s a God above_

_But all I’ve ever learned from love_

_Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew ya_

_And it’s not a cry that you can hear at night_

_It’s not somebody who has seen the light_

_It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_..._

Aleluia took a hesitant step forward.

Dani spread her arms.

He lunged at her, and she wrapped her arms around him, standing up.

“I—“, Tik started.

“It’s okay”, Luna said, gesturing with her hand for him to stop. “It’s okay”, she repeated, softly rocking the cadet in her arms.

_Oh god, I’m not ready to be a mother_

_Oh FUCK, how am I going to sneak a cadet out of the army?!_

She couldn’t just said he had gone missing on her ship, that meant there would be a full search, no room unchecked. She couldn’t—She couldn’t—Everything she could think of ended with a whole search of her ship, and she didn’t have a plausible excuse to keep him with her, neither liked the idea of having A KID ON HER WARSHIP! And if she let him go back to Kamino, she would lose track of him.

Dani cleared her throat. “Hum. Nice to see you have grown”, she said awkwardly. There was... quite an amount of tension around them. “Alright, men, the concert is over! Back to your duties!”

That at least cleared the hallway. Aleluia was clinging to her clothes.

“How would you feel about me setting you down?”, she whispered softly.

He clung harder.

“I’m not going anywhere, Aleluia. But I can’t carry you around right now, do you understand? Please.”

She lowered him to the floor, and he reluctantly let go and walked back to formation, eyes wide and scared.

_Oh, fuck..._

“So”, she began, pulling up a cheerful façade. “Mind if I join you for the rest of the day?”

 

It was hard, acting as if she had brushed off the whole ordeal. She snuck as many reassurance glances at Aleluia as she could: _I’m not forgetting, I’m not dismissing, you matter, this is just an act, please don’t hate me, please don’t cry—_ but she managed, despite her racing mind and growing anxiety.

What was she supposed to do? Snatch the kid and run away?

Ian was going to kill her.

She made sure to sit beside him at dinner, and passed him a small note over his lap:

_I’ll come to pick you up one hour into your night cycle. -Dani_

And she did. Aleluia was already out in the corridor when she went to fetch him. He ran towards her as soon as he saw her, and she was ready to take him in her arms again.

“Would you like to go to my room for a while?”, she asked softly, and felt him nod into her shoulder.

At that time there were few people on the corridors, and those who saw them didn’t comment at all.

“We’re here”, she said as the door to her room opened.

It wasn’t much different from the room she had had on Kamino: this one had colourful sheets and some posters and pictures hanging on the walls, plus a pile in a corner formed by her backpack and some things she had collected here and there.

Aleluia did not make any move to unglue himself from Dani, so she just sat on the bed, holding him.

“What are you thinking?”, she asked softly, kissing his spiky hair.

“Don’t leave me”, he hiccupped, and Ducky almost cried with him.

“I didn’t think you would remember. The song. Me”, she mused.

“I-I did. I do!”, he fisted his hands on her hoodie.

“You are hurting me a bit.”

“Sorry”, he said immediately, leaning back and pulling his hands to his chest.

“It’s okay”, she said, holding his hands in her own and caressing them.

Their eyes met, and they didn’t dare look away.

_What am I gonna do? I don’t have any methods to sneak him out and I don’t have authority over him..._

“They are going to take me away, aren’t they?”

“... You’ll be safer on Kamino.”

“Unless they decide I’m not good enough.”

There was no point in denying that.

She dried his tears with her thumbs and pulled him to her chest.

“I’m so sorry that you have to go through this...”

“You are a General!”, he cried. “Can’t you do something...?”

“I could, if you were a trooper. But I don’t have authority over cadets...”

This time, she let him cling to her.

“Sing...? Sing me my song again...?”, he pleaded.

“Of course.”

 

Aleluia was asleep in her arms, but Dani’s mind was racing, weighing pros and cons of the faulty plans that came to her mind.

_It won’t do... I either keep him safe and throw everything overboard or leave him to his luck and hope the war ends before he is sent out to the field..._

Ugh, maybe she could blackmail somebody? But who had authority over the cadets?

_Cadets_

_Children_

_Kids_

_Good with kids...?_

_PLO KOON!!!!!!!!_

The epiphany felt like an hydrogen bomb inside her brain and her body jerked, almost waking Aleluia up. Dani slowly peeled herself from under him and lay him on her bed.

Okay, okay, Plo Koon did have authority to pick up children and take them to the Jedi Temple, and if she could get him to take Aleluia there, then she could ask Yaddle or Padmé to take care of him!

But he had to appear strong in the Force for the Jedi Master to take the boy with him, was he enough to be selected? She prodded at him, and did felt potential, but would it be enough? Would it?

_I’ll make sure it is_

She took out her phone and went to the adjacent bathroom.

“Yeah?”

“Shades, I’m planning a desperate thing here. I need you to prepare a blood transfusion, no lives at immediate risk”, she explained quickly.

“Understood. I’ll be on standby.”

“Thanks, man”, she sighed, and hung up, quickly calling another frequency.

“This is Plo Koon”, his deep voice greeted.

“Uh, hi! I’m Dani. Dani Luna.”

“ _Koh-to-yah_ , young Luna. Can I be of any help?”

“Ah, yes, sorry to call all of a sudden but you usually travel around to search Force-sensitive kids, correct?”

“Indeed.”

“Alright, there’s a clone cadet here, and he is, uhm, strong in the Force. If you are intereste—”

“I’ll be there in thirteen hours”, he said, and hung up.

“Okay...”, she mouthed, and searched yet for another contact: “Heeeeeeeeyyyyyy, Yaddle...”

“About time it was”, the elder huffed on the other side. “What trouble are you in now. Was it fun? Hide again all of Kasta’s left boots, did you?”

“No, I’m calling for a more serious thing, it’s more like a huge favour but if you can’t do it I can always call Padmé and ask her if she would...”

“Talking without saying anything you are. Speak.”

Dani took a gulp of air.

“I’m going to be sending a clone cadet to the Temple with Plo Koon and I need you to take him under your wing and keep him with you or someone you really trust, no matter what.”

“Hum. A grand-Padawan, you are sending me?”, Yaddle giggled.

“What? No! I’m trying to send a kid to safety here!”

“Apologizes, apologizes. Understand I do. Look after him, I will.”

“Thank you, Yaddle”, she sighed in relief. “I owe you big time.”

“Wait to meet my grand-Padawan, I cannot. Hihihihihihi!”, she giggled, and hung up.

Luna allowed herself an exasperated sigh and returned to her room to kneel beside Aleluia’s head, placing a hand on his shoulder blade.

“Aleluia. Aleluia”, she called softly, until he woke up and his eyes met hers. “I have a plan so you don’t have to go back to Kamino. But we need to go to the medbay and give you a blood transfusion. Do you agree?”

“Yeah”, he replied almost immediately, raising on his elbows and quickly clambering to his feet, “Yeah, whatever it takes!”

“Alright”, Dani nodded, and offered a hand.

They hurried through the corridors and emergency stairs, avoiding everybody. They entered the medbay without knocking and Shades startled, standing up from a stool.

“What’s going on?”, he asked, eying the cadet.

“I need you to transfer some of my blood to him so he will appear clearly Force-sensitive and Plo Koon will take him to the Jedi Temple, where he will be safe”, she explained calmly.

The CMO blinked at her.

“Wow. That’s some next level deception.”

“As long as it saves a life”, Luna grumbled.

“Copy that. Lie down on the cots. Guess there’s no need for a blood compatibility test... Hey there, _vod’ika_. What’s your name?”, he asked softly.

“...Aleluia”, he answered after a moment of hesitation, trying to hide behind Dani, but she picked him up and sat him on a cot.

“Aleluia”, the older nodded. “I’m Shades, the 0th Chief Medical Officer. You have had blood tests on Kamino before, correct?”, he asked while he readied his tools. It was a silly question, but he needed to ease him into an explanation of what they were about to do. Dani had already taken off her hoodie as to not disturb the procedure. The cadet nodded. “Alright, what we are going to do is something similar, but this time you’ll be receiving blood from Dani. How much, boss?”

“A quarter of a litre should be enough”, she sighed.

“Alright: a quarter of a litre. It will be a direct transfusion, so try to stay still and calm. If you don’t think you can stand seeing the blood, please turn your gaze or close your eyes. There shouldn’t be any secondary effects, apart from the discomfort caused by the needle. Do you have any questions?”

“No, sir.”

“Alright, little solider. Lie down and take deep breaths.”

They remained silent as the transfusion started.

“When will Plo Koon be arriving?”

“Tomorrow, around the early afternoon.”

“When are you scheduled to leave, kid?”

“Late afternoon, sir.”

“Alright. Looks like we have some time for this to work out, and it’s still less than 24 hours, so most of your blood cells should still be alive”, he told Dani.

She nodded. She had already accounted for that.

“What’s...? What’s going to happen?”, Aleluia asked, voice small.

Dani scolded herself mentally.

“Ah, sorry, I forgot to explain...! You know I can use the Force, right? Like the Jedi?”

“Yes?”

“There’s a Jedi Master, Plo Koon, who is famous for taking in Force-sensitive children and sending them to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. With this blood transfusion you will have my mitochondria in you, and so it should appear that you are strong in the Force to him, enough so he can use his authority on the subject to decide that you should be sent to Coruscant instead of Kamino. Once there, Yaddle, a friend of mine, will seek you out and take care of you.”

“...So we are lying to a Jedi?”

“Yes.”

“Dani!”

“What?! I might be willing to lie to Plo but I won’t lie to Aleluia!”

“Someday you’ll have to explain me how you draw the lines...”, Shades shook his head.

“Who said anything about lines? It’s more like a chaotic wavy streak, not even pleasant to the eyes!”

“Fair enough”, the medic huffed. “All right, we’re done here. Don’t get up until you have finished a water pack each.”

Luna sipped from her bottle without any rush but constantly, and Aleluia mimicked her.

“When will I see you?”, the cadet asked suddenly.

Dani gave her a confused look.

“If I’m going to Coruscant but you aren’t, when will I see you again?”

“Oh, well. I go there every now and then, you know, I have business there and we have to dock there when we are on leave; once every two or three months is the more often we are able to go there.”

“That long?”, he asked sadly.

“’That long’? ’That long’? Honey, it might seem like a lot to you because you are like four years old, but three months ain’t nothing.”

“But... I will miss you...”

And that’s how you disarm sassiness.

Dani crushed the empty water pack in her hands, out of love or frustration, she didn’t know. So she got up and went to hug the kid.

“I’ll miss you too. But my mind will be at ease knowing that you are somewhere safe, and I will always come to visit you when I’m around, okay?”

“You promise?”

“I promise. Are you done with your water? Let’s go: we have to sneak you back into your room before your group wakes up.”

 

Next day Dani was humming with nervousness, keeping an eye on the group’s activities while taking care of her duties. She had informed Ian of her rushed plan and he just sighed, sign that soon he would call her in to have ‘A Talk’. She didn’t look forward to it, but she wasn’t going to avoid it either. Anyways, that was going to be a problem for Future Dani. Present Dani was busy keeping herself from calling Plo every thirty seconds to ask him how long it would take him to arrive.

_Oh god will I have to send a message to Naai and tell her that we have a child now? Oh god—_

The situation wasn’t out of control, but it wasn’t under control either, and that was driving her nuts. She almost passed out of relief when she felt a good bunch of Force-signals in the vicinity of _The Unruly_ , and ran to the hangar to meet her guests.

“Greetings, General Luna—“, Koon raised a hand in greeting, but Dani just grabbed his wrist and pulled, already powerwalking towards the corridors.

“Thankyouforcoming!Thekidisthisway!”

When he caught her rhythm, she started a quick Force-jog. To her surprise and pleasure, the Jedi kept up, with the Wolfpack running behind them as if their General was being kidnapped.

Dani would have laughed about the situation, but her anxiety was currently spiking and she was sure Plo Koon could feel it without wanting to, so she just kept running towards Aleluia’s presence.

She skidded to a halt, and so did the Jedi Master. She let go of his wrist and grabbed her own behind her back, blanketing herself with apparent calm. At the end of the hallway, the group of cadets turned the corner and faced them.

“At-ten-tion!”, Tik called again. “Generals present!”

Some kids leaned away from the formation to check that, indeed, there was more than one General walking towards them.

“Hello, Tik. This is Master Plo Koon. Plo, this is Tik, he is in charge of the cadets", Dani introduced them with such tranquillity that for a moment Koon considered that maybe he had imagined her anxiousness.

“It’s an honour, sir”, the clone nodded, eyes widening as the Wolfpack came to a halt behind their General. “Uh, what...?”

“I noticed one of your charges might be Force-sensitive. I called Master Plo Koon to confirm it”, she explained as calmly with a swift gesture to the kids.

“May I?”, he asked with his deep voice.

“Uh, of course sir, but I don’t think you’ll find anything... Us clones aren’t made to be Jedi...”, he said awkwardly, stepping aside.

“We are all equal in the living Force”, he replied, resting his hand on his shoulder for a moment before slipping towards the children.

Dani and Aleluia were holding each other’s gazes, trying to convince themselves that it would work. She didn’t notice Wolffe staring at her.

Plo hummed as he examined the cadets, with his eyes and the Force. He moved from the front rows to the back. As he regarded Aleluia, Dani held her breath. Koon kneeled down.

“What’s your name, young one?”

“A-Aleluia”, he answered shakily, blinking fast.

“Aleluia”, the General nodded. “You appear to be Force-sensitive. Would you like to come with me to the Jedi Temple?”

The surprise that flooded the corridor was a great contrast to Dani’s bright smile.

“Okay”, the kid answered.

“It is decided, then”, the Kel Dor said before Tik could open his mouth to protect. Regardless of the difference of authority and that he had no need to give explanations, he turned to him. “I will personally inform your superiors that Aleluia is to come with me. There shouldn’t be any repercussions to you.”

“I—Understood, sir. Thank you”, Tik said, lacking anything else to say or argue.

“Collect your belongings, young one. We will depart as soon as you are ready.”

“I don’t own anything”, Aleluia said, and fuck that broke Dani’s heart. But he broke formation and reached for her hand.

She took it without hesitation and looked up and Plo and the Wolfpack. Yeah, they were staring. Yeah, she was staring back.

“You ever had a piggyback ride?”, she asked to the kid.

“No”, he replied, shaking his head.

Dai crouched down, her back to him.

“Your chest against my back, arms around my neck”, she instructed as she slipped her hands under his thighs and stood up. “We’ll meet you at the hangar”, she said to the men, and Force-ran off.

Her heart ached for the other five kids she couldn’t save, but with any luck, she would be able to end the war before they were sent out. At the moment, she was going to rejoice in this small victory.

Aleluia hollered cheerfully at the speed.

“Will I be able to do this once I’m a Jedi?”, he asked with wonder.

“You don’t have to be a Jedi to do it! Just a Force user!”, she replied over the howling air around them.

She decided not to tell him that he probably wouldn’t retain Force powers. Dani set him down right next to the gunship Plo Koon had arrived with, and they just waited around. It didn’t take long for the Wolfpack to return, marching towards them.

Dani stood from the crate she was sitting on and gave a respectful bow to Plo.

“Thank you very much for taking him with you”, she said, hoping very hard that he would take the gratitude and let the awkwardness slide.

“Thank you, for bringing him to my attention”, he bowed back, and Dani blushed, having a general dislike for gestures of what she considered undeserved reverence. “Are you ready to leave, Aleluia?”

He looked up at Dani. She kneeled down.

“I’ll come visit you as often as I can”, she assured him, offering a hug.

Aleluia plastered himself against her.

“I’ll miss you, mom”, he mused into her chest, but everybody heard it.

Dani took a sharp inhale and tensed a bit, too busy processing the words to worry about what the witnesses. She pulled him away softly so she could look into his eyes.

“I’m not ready to be a mother”, she said slowly. “But once the war is over, I’ll make sure I am, and if all goes well, you won’t only have a mom, but TWO!”, she smiled, rising two fingers.

Aleluia’s quiet disappointment turned into astonishment as he stared at her fingers.

“Two?!”

Luna nodded.

“I’m going to have two moms!!!”, he cheered to her brothers, the need to share the news too great to contain.

“You sure are”, she smiled, standing up and looking at the Wolfpack in a stance that read: _I’m going to fight you all for him, bitches, don’t fucking Johnny Test me!_

And it worked, only because they were the 104th.

“Be good, okay?”, she told Aleluia, and scooped him up one last time to kiss his cheek.

Her heart melted when he returned the kiss, but managed to keep herself together and hand him to Plo. The Jedi bowed slightly and went to secure Aleluia on a seat while they waved goodbye.

“...Are you really going to adopt him?”, Commander Wolffe asked.

“Looks like I already did”, Dani smirked, crossing her arms. “Don’t you dare chew me out: we all know Koon is going to adopt all of you as soon as the opportunity arises!”, she grumbled, pointing at his chest with a finger.

“It is certainly unprecedented”, Plo chuckled, returning to them. “You are certainly very skilled at finding plausible ways of getting clones out of the army, General Luna.”

She tensed slightly, and worked her shoulders to relax.

“I don’t know what are you talking about.”

“I am honoured that you would call us and entrust us Aleluia. We would like to... participate further.”

“Participate further in what?”

“ _La iniciativa_ ”, Wolffe pronounced slowly.

Dani stared at him in silence for a long moment.

“Fair enough”, she shrugged, and her hand disappeared inside one of her pockets, extracting a piece of flimsi. “This is the cheat sheet, burn it as soon as you have learned it all. My personal number is also there, texts for updates, calls for emergencies only. I’ll be sending you contacts soon, once Commander Ian makes the pertinent background checks.”

“We look forward to working with you, Dani Luna.”

“Good to know that you are on our side. A favour, if I may?”

“Of course.”

“I’m looking for my father, Sol. Could you send out word that Ducky is looking for him?”

“Uh... How would we be of any help searching for your father?”, Wolffe asked, clearly sceptic.

“He’s a clone.”

 

“HELLO DANI!!!”, Aleluia hollered from the other side of the phone.

“Heeeeeyyyyyy! How are you doing?”, she asked cheerfully, smile plastered on her face as she lied in bed.

“Very well! Yaddle took me to the gardens and we saw lots of plants! There was a very big flower and it was orange and it was the best because it’s my favourite colour!”

“That’s great! Do you like gardening?”

“I don’t know yet but tomorrow grandma Yaddle is taking me to buy some plants for my room!”

“That’s so cool! Have you thanked her?”

“Indeed he has. A lot of energy my grand-Padawan has, uhm? Of my youth he remembers me”, she seemed to nod to herself. “Go pick our dinner you should, young Aleluia. Talk with Dani for a moment, I must.”

“Okay, but don’t hang up! Be right back, mom!”, he replied, followed by fading steps.

“What is it?”, Dani asked.

“The Force in him, fading is not.”

“...What? How?! My blood cells should have been dead for weeks now!”

“Your mitochondria he has assimilated.”

“...”

“Dani?”

“My mitochondria.”

“Yes.”

“My mother’s mitochondria.”

“Yes.”

“My female linage mitochondria.”

“Indeed.”

“My Earth’s female linage mitochondria.”

“Have you told Naai yet?”

“The message is on its way.”

“Something else there is.”

“Oh, god. What.”

“His accelerated aging stopped has.”

“WHAT?!”, she shouted to her empty room. “That’s...! That’s...! That’s great news! We can—!"

“We can’t”, Yaddle cut her, firm as a mountain. “Take your blood to heal millions of men, we cannot.”

“Maybe we don’t need a quarter of a litre per person! Maybe a drop is enough! Maybe—”

“Do it at the cost of your health, we will not”, Yaddle repeated. “A  last resource, this will be. Until then, different options we will seek, yes? Agreed?”

Luna sighed quietly, rubbing her sheets between her fingers and going through possible outcomes of the options presented.

“Alright. I understand. I will do some tests to see if a drop of my blood is enough to freeze the accelerated aging, though, but I promise not to try to bottle it up and send it everywhere. Yet.”

“All I ask for, this is”, Yaddle hummed. “Coming back, Aleluia is.”

“Hi Dani! I chose chicken for dinner!”

“Oh, yummy!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That awkward moment when you become your uncle's mother but you decide to just roll with it for the sake of your own sanity


	22. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Sol ended up on Earth

Sol had been one of the first successful standard clones. With great proficiency at piloting, he was chosen for the test flight of _The Shooting Star_ being only seven years old.

And what a ship. The engineers had surely put a lot of love and effort on its design. It was surely pleasant to the eyes, with it’s slick, aerodynamic style (despite the lack of need for it, because duh, space...) and the silver plating where you could see your own face. A special spaceship specifically designed to be the vessel for a lightning incursion to Separatist territory, _because what better way was there to end a war than just popping up from hyperspace in a go and severing the head of the enemy?_ , a Kaminoan engineer had thought. Sol regarded the ship with pride, because if it worked, the war would end with minimal casualties. The project had been kind of a secret, but the bosses had been called to watch the test.

He was going to be the only war hero of a very, very short war. And the first pilot to ever use the fastest ship built to date.

So he put on his pristine white armour and carried his helmet under his arm until before boarding, giving a salute to the obscured silhouettes observing him.

Sol took his time turning on the interface, watching it lit up and listening to the hum of machinery, and took a moment to caress the controls.

“Be right back”, he sang-sung into his comms.

And took off.

He left the atmosphere smoothly and watched the stars as he veered to make a straight jump half a galaxy away in less than three seconds. He wasn’t going anywhere in particular, just towards uncharted space to turn tail as soon as he got there. He decided a vector and stuck with it.

“Beginning hyperspace jump.”

“Copy that, CT-00-0023”, mission command replied coldly.

Sol couldn’t care less. He was excited about this, and nothing and no one was going to spoil the best moment of his lif—

His train of thought halted and his eyes widened as he heard the unmistakable sound of an overcharging and overheating engine. He reached for the switch to kill the power core as fast as he could, but it wasn’t enough.

The intensity of hyperspace nearly blinded him, the increasing high pitch of the engine like a ticking clock to his imminent death as he fumbled for the kill switch frantically. He briefly wondered what would happen with his corpse if the ship exploded in hyperspace. Would it burn until only dust was left? Would it hurl among the stars until it collided with something, or would a ship eventually pass by and pick it up, wondering who the poor soul that died was?

Sol snarled, in denial of his most possible fate, and lurched forwards, turning off the power.

 _The Shooting Star_ shuddered as it left hyperspace, and drew a wide curve as he jerked the controls to avoid colliding with a red planet. A star shinned yellow in the nearly horizon as he scanned for an habitable planet to crash-land on—

The only habitable planet on the system was the one at barely a minute away. Peachy...

He ran mental math: he didn’t have enough time to manoeuvre the ship so it didn’t catch fire when entering atmosphere—!

_A NATURAL SATELLITE!! THANKS THE FORCE!!!_

He careened towards the satellite and hoped that it’s gravity would be enough to slow him down. The ship kept shuddering, warnings flaring on the screens as Sol ignored them for good measure, knowing full well that systems and data weren’t going to help him in that situation. He barely noticed the entrance to atmosphere with how hard _The Shooting Star_ was shaking, but he did feel the building heat a handful of seconds later. He flew over the ocean, weighting down if it was better to crash-land on the ground or the sea. By the looks of it he wasn’t going to have much of an option.

The spaceship made contact with water and bounced, straining Sol’s shoulders and chest against the safety belts as it bounced again, again and again. Through narrowed eyes, he could see islands approaching fast. Four bounces more and he would even have decent chances at surviving. Eight and he would end up crashing against something harder than water tension.

A new warning indicated a breach in the hull. Sol groaned internally as the ship was slowed down by the water’s weight and finally started sinking, barely fifty meters away from the beach. He fumbled with the release of the safety belt, fingers quacking, but managed to free himself and stood up on wobbling legs, stumbling through dark water towards the emergency exit on top of the vessel.

Climbing up the ladder was hell to his weakened muscles, but he would do whatever it took to escape. He hadn’t travelled further than any of his brothers ever would just to end up drowning in an ocean as pitch dark as the one on Kamino.

He dragged himself out of _The Shooting Star_ and clawed at the slick metal, trying his best not to slip and fall to the water. In a precarious balance, he started peeling off of his armour to get rid od the unnecessary weight. He finally decided to get rid of his helmet too, thinking that the small oxygen supply would be more trouble than help. Plus, he was sure non of his comms would be of any help. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too far to call for help. Panting, he looked up at the shore. He would have to take a swim sooner or later, but honestly, at that moment he didn’t feel like he could make it. So he just sat there as the ship kept sinking, trying to save as much strength as possible for when he ran out of surface to sit on.

The universe didn’t seem to be on his side that day.

Sol didn’t even get five minutes of brake. He had to jump to the water so he wasn’t dragged down with the ship. Out of options, he just swam, doing his best to keep a steady breathing. But it was getting harder. Harder to breathe, harder to see, harder to think, harder to kick against the currents. He just wanted to rest, to stop moving for a moment...

The waves engulfed him and he gave a last weak kick.

Something breached the surface of the water and sunk towards him, covered in bubbles. The sudden sound and motion was enough to startle Sol into awareness, and he kicked on reflex, arms flailing, if to try to reach or get away from whatever that was, he didn’t know yet.

The bubbles floated away, revealing a human face.

Eyes darker than his were staring back, wide with worry as a hand reached for him. Long dark hair was waving around, and even soaked with water it was trying to curl on itself.

Sol reached back weakly.

Her grip was surprisingly strong as she pulled him up to loop her arm under his armpits, and she swam to the surface with an efficiency and speed that Nautolans would envy. They both inhaled deeply in the chill air of the night. Sol broke into a coughing fit, but his rescuer was already dragging him towards a wooden boat. She threw his arms over the edge and made sure that he was holding on on his own before pushing herself up to help him in. Sol was still coughing his lungs out, but oh, the relief of not having to move to stay alive! That only gave him time to focus on his unruly breathing, but at least drowning wasn’t a problem anymore.

A wet hand slipped under his shoulders and pushed him up slightly, the other holding a canteen in his reach. Sol frowned for a moment, not really knowing what was being offered: it could have been drugged, or plainly not something that he could consume, but instinct and a strangely blind trust took over and he sipped at its content to discover it was cool, clean water. It helped ease his coughing as his rescuer patted his back soothingly.

The woman voiced a questioning sentence.

“I-I don’t u-understand you...”, he rasped.

She blinked at him, and tried again.

He shook his head.

Again: different sounds, a question.

He shook his head again, eyelids dropping.

A hand on his shoulder, a squeeze to get his attention.

“Lian”, she said, patting her chest with her other hand. “Lian Luna.”

And she pointed at him.

It took him a moment, but he understood. He rose a shaking hand and patted his chest:

“Sol.”

 

He recalled the day he had arrived on Earth as he watched baby Luna sleep on her crib. It had taken a lot of pointing and repeating sounds until Lian and him had learned enough of each other’s languages to communicate through sentences, and a good bunch of learning books for him to learn to use the alphabet. The full moon shone bright in the night sky, faintly illuminating the room.

The hyperspace engine had been sabotaged. He was sure about it.

That hadn’t been the first test of _The Shooting Star_. It had been the first _hyperspace jump_ test. He himself had made the other pertinent tests: engine, manoeuvrability in and out of atmosphere... It had all been well. Surprisingly well. It all went to hell when the bosses were called in. But why? Why would the big fishes want to destroy something that could end the war almost instantly?

Something was off, and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. But his eyes drifted to his daughter, and he had to ask himself: could he? Could he tell himself to let it go, to abandon his brothers? The other option wasn’t easy either: was he willing to leave his wife, his daughter? Little Luna was so, so young, and she wasn’t displaying any signs of accelerated growth. He wanted something better for her than what he had.

Baby Dani stirred and scrunched her little face, sniffing.

“Hey, there”, Sol cooed, carefully picking her up before she could start wailing. “It’s okay, dad’s here...”

And as he rocked her, he whispered to her in Basic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sol = Sun  
> Luna = Moon
> 
> One could say that Sol was saved by the moon two times in a row


	23. Hanging By A Thread

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: traumatic war experience
> 
> OC character death...

 

 

“So, would you be my Third In Command?”

“Sir, I think this should be discussed in a... more professional place”, Thread replied, holding fast on the hooks of the larty as to not fall when it shuddered entering atmosphere.

“We’re military, mate. Our profession is war and we’re on our way to a battlefield. Ian has given his okay, so you have the last word.”

“Go, Thread!”, somebody cheered at the other side of the ship.

“Thread for TIC!”, the clone right behind her hollered, and Dani screeched minutely, startled.

The cheering spread all over the ship and Luna gave a wide grin, knowing that he was blushing under his helmet.

“Alright, alright, settle down, men—”

Dani’s smile fell of her face as a chill went down her spine. It was as if time had slowed down as the air around her grew colder and colder, almost freezing. But there was—warmth coming from above.

Too much warmth.

She bolted and elbowed the button to enable communication to the whole ship violently as she turned on the broadcast channel of her wristcomm:

“ORBITAL CANNONS!!!”, she shouted.

The larty swerved abruptly and she lost her balance. Thread was quick to catch her wrist and guide it to a hook.

“Thanks—“, she started, when a deafening explosion drowned her words.

Fourteen lights went out from her Force-vision.

“Oh god! How did we miss those?!”

The ship veered again, presumably dodging enemy fire. Unable to do anything, she reached out: to Ian, to Pedal, to Laa’ka, to Apple; all of them riding in different transports, and kept a frantic eye on them—

“Dani!”, Thread rested a hand on her shoulder.

She snapped out of it and turned to look at him, only to have her vison suddenly obscured before her eyes adapted to the visor. She stared at Thread’s exposed head, and was reaching to yank his helmet off and give it back with a snarl when they were hit and everybody was flung around the cargo bay like rag dolls.

 

She woke up with a sharp inhale and curved on herself, uselessly trying to escape the pain coming from inside her. Luna coughed harshly: dust and smoke being purged from her lungs as she twisted her body to drag herself out from under the shredded metal around her. Everything hurt, but not enough that she wouldn’t be able to move if she really wanted to. Her fingers clawed at the earth and weeds as she escaped the heat from the wreckage, some distant memory telling her that she had to flee in case something exploded. Shakily, she rose to her knees and teared off her helmet—no, wait, she wasn’t wearing her helmet when they took off—this was—this was—Thread!

“Thread!”, she croaked, looking around.

She must have been flung out from the ship after the first impact, because the barely recognisable shape of the larty was a good distance away, at the end of a trail of parts.

“Thread!”, she called louder, dizziness sweeping over her as she failed her first attempt at standing. She couldn’t—She couldn’t concentrate enough to feel presences through the Force—

Dani stumbled her way over the wreckage. She saw a white clad body sprawled on her way there and made a bee line to go check on him, but stopped herself when she realised that the metal panel over it wasn’t hiding half of the body, but it had sliced it in half. She clasped a hand over her mouth and closed her eyes, tears falling, and continued on her way.

_Please be okay please please don’t be dead please please—_

She braced herself against the side of the ship and looked inside.

It took her a moment to be able to make heads and tails from the tangle of limbs.

“Can anyone hear me?”, she rasped, kneeling besides the closest clone to check his pulse.

 _Non-existent_.

She kept checking for heartbeats and finding none until her vison stumbled with an unprotected head.

“Thread!”, she gasped, and scrambled over the corpses to get to him.

He wouldn’t be alive. If the others had died while wearing full armour it was impossible that he was alive. She had survived with a helmet that she shouldn’t have been wearing, plus her chest plate and boots.

When she slipped her fingers to his neck, expecting to be met with stillness, Thread groaned.

“THREAD!”, Dani yelped, and slowly rolled him to his back, supporting his head carefully. Her hand came away damp with blood. “It’s okay”, she reassured him, carefully searching for the head injury and pressing down on it.

He groaned louder, trying to shift away, but the General held him in place stubbornly.

“Hey, hey, it’s me, it’s Dani... I’m going to try to—”

She tried to heal him, but she found there was very little she could give. Regardless, she passed him what she could spare.

Thread coughed, blinking into consciousness.

“...D-Dani...?”

“I’m here”, she replied softly, instead of going with _Why did you give me your helmet you fucking idiot?! I ended up outside the ship I might have been able to survive without it and now look at you your skull might be cracked—!_ “Talk to me. How are you feeling?”, she asked with urgency.

“...Urgh...”, he voiced.

“Okay, let’s go with: not great.”

What in optimal conditions would have been a laugh turned into a weak shake of his shoulders and an exhausted smile. Dani tried to heal him again but, surprise, surprise, those two minutes hadn’t been enough for her to gather much energy. She shook her head, trying to get a read on life signals, but that wasn’t going great either. She fell to her ass and pressed her wristcomm:

“This is General Luna”, she panted. “We got shot down, Thread and I are the only survivors. He has a head injury: requesting med evac ASAP. I—I’m not well enough to heal him. We’re moving out of the wreckage.”

When nobody answered after ten seconds, she gathered herself to kneel. They must be busy saving their own butts and taking care of the orbital cannons. She turned on her distress signal and patted Thread’s shoulder until he made another sound.

“I’m going to look for something to help me move you safely, okay? I’ll be right back. Keep your hand here and try to rest”, she guided his hand to his wound and pressed slightly, fearfully taking her hands back. Fortunately, his hand stayed where she had left it, and he gave a weak nod, which seemed to cause him pain.

Dani lightly squished his shoulder, settling him down with Force-influence before standing and navigating her way through the corpses. She was quick to find a metal slab where she could lie Thread down and drag him easily as far as it took. She spent longer clearing the bodies from the way to Thread. Luna did it with numb efficiency, thoughts blocked unconsciously because she didn’t have time to blame herself for that spectacular failure, because _FUCK_ , _orbital cannons, how did I not see those...?!_

So she woke up Thread to check on him as if she didn’t just move away the corpses of his brothers and carefully placed him on the metal slab, deciding to take it easy and stop as often as it was necessary so the slick metal wouldn’t slip from her fingers and jar Thread to the unforgiving ground. And metal. She took them past the tree line, seeking the cover of the forest, but decided against going too deep into it. She hoped any large animals would have been scared away by the crash.

Dani dropped on her ass, leaned on the closest tree, took a deep breath, planning her next step, and passed out.

She startled awake, remembering that she had important things to do, and promptly threw up to a side. She grimaced at the taste and the burn in her throat as she crawled away from the odour and towards Thread; unconscious but breathing. She unclasped her canteen and took a gulp, deciding against spitting even a drop.

“Thread”, she called, shaking his shoulder. He groaned and stirred a bit, but didn’t open his eyes. “Thread”, she called again, more insistent, and moved her hand to caress his cheek. “Come on, man. I have some water here...”

Luna tried to take stock of herself: now she had enough energy to feel Thread’s presence, but... It wasn’t good. With effort, she pushed life-force into him. The clone groaned again, but this time he woke up.

“Hey”, she said softly to get his attention. “You should drink some water.”

She sat him up and leaned his back against her chest to hold him steady as she helped him take careful sips. He turned his head away and made an annoyed sound.

“You are annoyed? _I_ am annoyed. Did you know that I passed out like a shiny? For like... Two hours. Damn”, she shook her head and reached to rest a hand on Thread’s forehead. “Guess it won’t be long until somebody picks us up. How are you feeling?”, she asked, not able to mask the worry any longer.

While she ~~hoped~~ waited for a reply, she inspected his injury. Or, well, the most threatening. She realised she hadn’t made a great job of taking stock of his wounds. Dani carefully prodded along his skull. Something gave away slightly and she pulled away with an horrified gasp as Thread flinched and started shuddering.

“Oh god I’m so sorry I’m so sorry I’m so sorry!!!”, she apologized over and over, not daring to reach out to comfort him as tears spilled down her cheeks.

Eventually he settled down, breathing harsh. Dani clasped her hands over her mouth, willing herself to calm down, to not disturb him with her own barely-under-control breaths. She scrunched up her eyes, but the landscape inside her was even worst: a buzzing that wouldn’t quiet down, trying desperately to replenish what she had lost and kept giving and the pounding of her heart and the swell of anxiety in her head, and goddamn healing Thread was like trying to fix a wall with sand!—

Fingers weakly grasped at her wrist.

Dani gasped and looked down, to Thread’s glassy eyes. She reached for his hand before it lost its strength and cradled between her own.

“Don’t... cry...”, he gasped, flinching at only the movement of his jaw.

She sobbed in response, unable to hold herself back now that he had called her out on it.

“I think... I will accept the kisses... now...”

He gave a lopsided smile, and Luna hiccupped a half-laugh.

“Of course”, she replied, tears still falling but breathing calm as she pulled him closer to her so she could kiss the uninjured part of his head.

Thread breathed out, going lax in her grip.

 

Dani did not move when she heard the larty approaching. Didn’t make any move to stand when she heard voices. Didn’t spare a glance when they called her name. She saw white boots running to meet her, and saw them slow down to end up frozen a few paces away, more boots appearing behind the firsts. For a small eternity, she refused to meet anyone’s eyes, but the silence didn’t give her other choice than to make the first move.

She looked up at Apple, Ian, Laa’ka, Raven and Shades and clutched closer the corpse in her arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FOR ALL THAT'S WORTH I CRIED A LOT WRITING THIS CHAPTER I'M SORRY IT HAD TO BE DONE I PROMISE SOMETHING TO CUSHION THE BLOW


	24. Gala

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Dani and Naai met. Featuring Fox and some guys of the Coruscant Guard

Freshly graduated from Kamino, nineteen years old Dani found herself dragged to a gala by the Chancellor himself. She knew what he was doing: the old man wanted to parade his new and only military Force-user in front of the aristocracy and the handful of Separatists politicians that were invited, since it wasn’t much of a gala as it was an attempt to establish peaceful negotiations. That’s the main reason why she hadn’t made up a good excuse to not go, like, having explosive diarrhoea or something (that one worked almost always): she NEEDED to meet Separatists if she wanted to have the slightest chance of her plans working. A part of her wondered if Unruly and Slick had made it. She knew they were alive, because she hadn’t felt what she had felt when 99 died, but she had no idea where they were, if they were doing fine, if they had managed to pass her message to somebody.

Anyways, she had work to do.

She stared at the hideous, way too sumptuous and overcharged dress Palpatine had sent her and finally decided to set it on fire at the fireplace, because there was no denying that she couldn’t wear what didn’t exist; before calling in a tailor.

And that’s how she walked into the entrance hall, fashionably late: wearing a deep blue vest with matching tight pants over a white button up shirt and slick, black leather shoes with a deep blue and silver tie disappearing under the vest, her hands slightly tucked inside the pockets of the pants and walking towards the Chancellor and Commander Fox as if she were royalty, regardless of her laidback stance.

Faces turned around to track her as she passed by.

“Have you seen that? The slickness! The austerity!”, someone said in wonder, and whoever that was, their opinion spread around the room.

She could have been branded as a deviant and make fun of for her dressing choice, but that single opinion just moved everybody in the room to her favour. Suddenly, everybody who wore overcharged dresses and garments felt ashamed. Out of the corner of her eyes, Dani saw somebody tear the pearls embed to their cape away.

“Commander Fox. Chancellor”, she nodded her greetings, not even bothering to hide her smug smile at Palpatine’s wide eyes. “I hope it doesn’t bother you, but I decided to wear something I am more... comfortable with”, she said slowly.

“Of course”, Sheev forced himself to smile. “I merely meant to offer you something to wear, in case you didn’t have anything suitable for the situation.”

“Well, I do now”, she smiled back, and gestured towards the main hall. “Shall we?”

Fox seemed relieved that the conversation was over, so the tension wasn’t escalating anymore, as Dani walked beside him. She looked around, at the Coruscant Guard that had been tasked with the security detail, just to try and make eye contact, because she had already placed them all in the Force. She noticed a of familiar presence and decided that she would go and talk to him later.

She allowed the Chancellor to introduce her to some politicians and made a point of bringing up the propaganda showed in Loyalty Class whenever somebody asked her how it was to train in Kamino. Palpatine eventually dismissed her, but she went on to explain it because if she was the main attraction of the night, she was going to put up a show, whether he liked it or not.

When she felt her social skills dropping to a minimum, she excused herself from the group she was in and went to find the familiar Force-signal. Dani almost squeaked when she saw a red wavy pattern on an armour.

“Hey! Wavy design!”, she called cheerfully. “I remember you! Do you remember me?”

“Curly hair!”, he called back, and Dani laughed.

“Did we ever get each other’s names?”

“I don’t think we did. I’m Sound.”

“Dani Luna.”

“ _General_ Dani Luna?!”, he asked with surprise as she leaned on the wall beside him as to not obstruct his view of the room.

“Since a week ago, yeah”, she nodded.

“So YOU are the kid that went to train on Kamino?”

“I sure am!”, Dani chuckled.

“And, uh, what’s your opinion? Who did you have as instructor?”

“Kamino sucks, especially the cloning facilities; and I got El-Les.”

“Oh, you got out easy, then: I got Bric, a real pain in the ass.”

“Yeah, I crossed paths with him. He behaved like a dumbass so I blasted _All Star_ by Smash Mouth in his quarters at 0400 for a week.”

“ _All_ what?”

Dani slipped her phone off and played it with the volume at its minimum.

“This. In the middle of the night. For a week?”

She nodded.

“And you didn’t get caught?”

“Well, looking into my phone would have been a violation of my privacy and I would have been able to sue them for it, so they had no way to get proof against me”, she shrugged with a smirk.

Sound seemed dumbfounded, head turning with small twitches as he looked between Luna and the room in general.

“You didn’t!”, he whisper-shouted.

“I bet he still startles awake at night”, she nodded.

They both exploded in laughter, attracting a whole lot of attention. Dani didn’t really care, but she noticed Fox coming their way and did her best to calm the both of them down. When the Commander got around they were back to a normal conversation. Dani waved cheerfully at him, as if she were innocent.

“I’m glad to see you, man. What were the chances?”

“I know, right?”

“Is your partner still around?”

“Oh, yeah, but he didn’t get picked for the security detail. He was pretty grumpy about it.”

“Tell him I said hello when you see him.”

“I’ll tell him General Luna remembers us.”

“Always, mate!”, she snickered.

“Listen, don’t turn around, but there’s this guy who has been staring at you for a while now—I said DON’T turn around!”

But Dani was already staring. It—They were from a species she had never seen before. They were quite far, but they seemed to have mandibles and oh, a deep blue skin...

“We match”, she mused.

“What?”

“I’m going to say hello.”

“What?!”

Sound tried to grab her arm, but she was already out of his reach.

Dani maintained eye contact with that unknown person as she made her way to them. They saw her coming and met her halfway.

“Hello”, Dani smiled softly.

“Greetings”, they nodded.

“May I know your name and pronouns?”

“I am Naai’na’ra. She/her. May I know yours?”

“My name is Dani Luna. Also she/her.”

“A pleasure to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine. I noticed that... we match”, she said, kind of awkwardly.

To her relief, Naai’na’ra chuckled, her mandibles vibrating. Dani found herself mesmerized by them.

“I saw you laughing with that clone over there. Is he your friend?”

“Well, it’s just the second time we see each other, but he sure hopes he sees it that way”, she explained, looking at Sound, who also had his eyes on her, vigilant. She waved and gave a reassuring smile. The Guard seemed to settle down, and looked away.

“So you are the newest addition to the GAR: General Dani Luna”, Naai’na’ra proceeded. There was something in her voice. A cautiousness, but also a need to prod around.

“I am. What’s your occupation?”

“I am a psychologist and activist. I help coordinate a great deal of arrivals of refugees in Separatist space.”

Dani’s head snapped towards her.

“...Maybe we could talk somewhere more private?”, she asked hesitantly.

“It would be my pleasure”, she nodded.

They walked out the main hall and picked random corridors to walk down. They finally arrived at some kind of roofless garden, two moons and stars shinning above them.

“We shall speak here, if you agree.”

“Uh? Oh, I do”, Dani replied. She had gotten distracted with some strange flowers.

“Forgive my boldness, but I need to ask you something.”

“Sure.”

Naai’na’ra’s hands disappeared among her black clothes, and for a moment Dani feared that she was going to pull a gun on her. She was already semi-ready to jump to a side if she identified a weapon—

The alien pulled out a device, alright, but it was not a gun.

It was a razor machine.

“Do you know the name of the person who owns this?”

“Unruly”, she blurted out, tears of joy falling.

“That’s correct”, she seemed to smile. “I assume you are the one Slick referred to as ‘Ducky’.”

“Are they okay?”, she asked, doing her best to dry the tears and snot that wouldn’t stop flowing.

“They had been in my custody for a year now. Slick recovered from his injuries. Unruly stayed with him all along, and currently he decided to: ‘become a hairdresser like my friend suggested, so she will hold her part of our promise and become a General to end the war so we can meet again’.”

Dani hiccupped a laugh, crying harder.

“They are okay...”, she breathed to herself, the euphoria too much to contain, “They are okay...!”

“You saved them”, Naai’na’ra nodded, warmth in her voice. “And I would gladly help you save even more of them, if we can reach a compromise.”

Luna sobered up, eyes hardening.

“I would like further evidence that you can keep whoever I send you safe. Once we have this started.”

“I would like clear evidence that you will not try to send me assassins. Once we have this started.”

“Fair enough”, Dani nodded. “The Chancellor, the Jedi and the Senate won’t be aware of my side of the operations, with my contact in the Senate being the only exception.”

“Count Dooku, the Sith and the Separatist Senate won’t be aware of my operations either. All that they will know is that I am receiving refugees. I will set up intermediaries in neutral planets to guarantee the clones and our safety.”

“I agree. I won’t take unnecessary risks to smuggle troopers to guarantee the safety of those who I can help and the safety of the intermediaries.”

“I appreciate your thoughtfulness”, Naai’na’ra nodded. “May I ask you a question? With the purpose of building up trust.”

“Sure.”

“Why do you want to help the clones?”

Dani waited, thinking that she was going to concretize, but she did not. So Luna took a moment to think about her answer. This was important. If the blue alien didn’t like her answer, she might turn around and leave and all her plans would be ruined.

“I could write you a whole essay about how the clones are the Republic’s slave army”, she sighed. “But my answer is way simpler: I want to help them because they are family.”

Naai’na’ra jumped a bit at the revelation, surprised.

“Are they?”

“My father is somewhere in the ranks of the GAR. That’s why I decided to become a General, to find him, and since I’m in a position of power, I intend to save as many of my uncles as I can.”

“I see”, she seemed to think for a moment. “I do not require evidence that you won’t send me assassins anymore. I sense this is very important to you. I choose to place my trust in your personal involvement.”

“Thank you”, Dani blinked, honestly surprised at her willingness to trust. “May I ask you why do you want to help the clones?”

“As you said it, I could write several essays on how they are being treated like non-sentient beings. And just like yours, my motivation is, in fact, quite simple: I despise slavery, and I despise this war. I despise how the clones are being treated by the Republic, and I hope to give them a safe heaven where, if they are willing to, they might share their experiences with me and my team so we can put together the crimes committed by the Republic and the Kaminoans, and hold them accountable for them.”

Dani nodded slowly. “I see. Since you are putting your trust on my, I’ll place mine on you. But if I find out that my uncles are being mistreated once they reach you, I will personally kill my way to you to end you”, she said slowly, her voice growing dark.

“It will not come to that”, Naai’na’ra replied, emotionless, before taking a device out of another of her pockets. “Here: this is a small list with some contacts and the planets where they are stationed. You shall unload men there, and they will be sent to me.”

“Understood”, Luna nodded and hid in an interior pocket of her vest. “I hope our... enterprise is fruitful.”

“So do I”, the blue skinned nodded. “Well, I guess that’s all we had to talk at the moment. You can get in touch with our contacts too whenever you need to contact me, and I will arrange so you receive anonymous messages when I need to contact you. Do you have some device outside of the military network?”

“I do”, Dani replied, and showed her her phone. “I can receive texts and calls.”

“Perfect”, Naai’na’ra pulled out yet another device. “I won’t keep it for safety reasons, only my contacts will have it.”

“Alright.”

“I guess our first negotiations end here”, she said, and stood to leave.

“Wait!”, she called, “I, uh, it’s the first time I see your species, could I ask you some questions...?”

“Sure”, she smiled, slowly sitting down again. “So. What’s your first impression?”

“I, uh, I think you are very pretty”, Luna blurted out.

Naai’na’ra let out a laugh, the sound like the singing of a cicada, and Dani found herself leaning forward to hear it better.

“You are not bad for a human, either”, she replied smugly.

She blushed and huffed.

“T-Thanks...”

“Excuse my boldness, maybe I’m getting mixed signals, but: are you interested in... me?”, Naai’na’ra asked slowly, leaning slightly towards her.

“Uhm, yeah?”, she replied, not knowing where to rest her gaze as her eyes darted around nervously.

“Would you like us to go to a more private room?”, she purred.

“Yes.”

 

“Ah, here you are!”, the Chancellor greeted her as she approached him and the small committee of Corsucant Guards. “I thought somebody had stolen our precious General! Where have you been?”

Dani panicked a bit.

“Having sex”, she blurted out, all heads turning abruptly towards her. “With several people. Don’t ask me who. I don’t remember.”

She had to make a monumental effort to not brake down laughing at Sheev’s face.

“Yeah, I guess I’m not the best option to bring along at galas”, she shrugged. “How did the negotiations go?”, she asked cheerfully, behaving as of she had done nothing wrong.

It took a moment for Palpatine to answer.

“They haven’t been... prosperous.”

“I see”, she limited herself to nod, knowing that if she tried to discuss politics with him he would be breathing down her neck all the time. Better let him think that she wasn’t interested in that. “Are we leaving, then?”

“Indeed”, he nodded, and started making his way to his ship.

Dani and the Guards accompanied him in silence to the luxurious ship, driven always by a droid. Some of the guards split to mount their speedsters and escort him to his residence for what was left of the night.

“Thank you for inviting me, Chancellor. I wish you a good night”, she bid farewell behind an act.

“It’s been a... unique experience”, he said between gritted teeth.

_One I’m sure you don’t want to repeat, uh?_

“I wish you the best of lucks on your upcoming challenges.”

Dani nodded and stepped away, watching the ship and speeders go before turning to Fox.

“Shall we?”, she gestured to their disarmed gunship.

“Yes, sir”, the Commander replied.

She walked besides Sound.

“The blue guy didn’t kill you”, he commented happily.

“In a way...”, she chuckled.

They sat together and kept chattering.

“Hope the old man doesn’t even ask me to come again. What a waste of time...”

“Surely he won’t, after your behaviour”, Fox grumbled.

“Well, that was the whole point of it”, she smirked.

“...What?”

“I wanted him to leave me the fuck alone. Do you know how to do it to get somebody to leave you the fuck alone? You don’t tell them you don’t want to see them and risk their rage, no: you make THEM not want to see you”, she nodded along, sharing life advice. “Bet he doesn’t invite me ever again. And if I have to have a bad time, he will too.”

“Yeah, take advantage of this, since you can...”. Sound sighed.

“Hey, if you ever want to take a day off, just say you have explosive diarrhoea. Who’s going to come check?”

“ _I_ am going to come check”, Fox replied over the general laughter.

“Shit man, you’re a masochist...”, she snickered. The Commander didn’t seem pleased with the conversation. “Sorry, sorry: I know you have a very stressful job and I shouldn’t be joking about it. I apologize. Sorry”, she settled down, and that seemed to calm Fox too as he sat beside her. “I mean: being tasked with the security of Coruscant. Wow. How can you even get up the next day?”

“...I just do”, he shrugged tiredly.

“If you ever need help with paperwork, give me a call, mate. I’ll help how I can.”

He seemed.... startled by that.

“What?”, she asked, intrigued by his reaction.

“Nothing...”, he replied quickly. “Nobody had ever offered me help with that before. I have Thorn, but it’s his obligation too...”

“Well”, she patted his shoulder softly in an awkward attempt at comforting. “There’s always a first time”, and gave him a hopeful smile.

Fox found himself smiling back, even if the gesture was brief.


	25. Commander Ian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I realised you guys barely know anything about Ian. He deserves a chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Metalwing come out of your corner there's something for you in this chapter
> 
> I have posted a drawing of Ian on my Tumblr, if you want to check it out I'm @quimerathetraveller and it's tagged as"commander Ian", and "Ducky"

Ian was not a fan of war.

Regardless, he had been bred for it. Not only to fight, but to lead. While most of his CC brothers had taken on the role with honour, he had been terrified by it. Trying to find ways to get relegated without getting himself decommissioned...

And then Dani had come along: with an objective so clear that just her presence was grounding. And she had chosen _him_. Still, he had been afraid. Afraid of the war, afraid of the weight on his shoulders, afraid of disappointing her. Last thing he would have expected was Luna sitting him down and going: _Listen, this is going to be very shitty for both of us, so let’s be kind and forgiving to ourselves and support each other, yeah?_

No objections to that, no sir. And that’s how they waltzed through war: being extra careful on all their plans, making mistakes, loosing loved ones and sitting together doing whatever until the sadness went marginally away or they got up on autopilot because they had a battalion and a smuggling operation to run. It wasn’t all bad, though. Despite the responsibility, the weight, they were happy. They were friends. They were family.

Shit, she was his NIECE! He wasn’t going to get a better reason to live through all this crap than that!

 

He was leading the 0th alone that day. Dani had been called by the Chancellor to ‘run an errand’ a.k.a ‘scare a politician with a death threat or murdering somebody, depending on the day’. So it was on him to lead their support operation and lead their men into battle. Practise made the motions easier: armed with his sniper rifle and medium-range blaster, he snipped the biggest threats and switched to the blaster when he needed to move or the droids were too close. The noises of war went on around him: shouted orders, screams of pain, brothers dragging other brothers to safety and medics working frantically.

The kid, Laa’ka, skidded to a halt beside him.

“They are setting up mortars, sir!”, he informed.

“Damn it!”, he hissed, peeking above his cover.

An absolutely unnecessary action, since a bomb exploded barely ten meters away from them, the noise drowned by the screams of those who had been hit.

“Where are the Jedi and their Commander?!”

“They went to flank them some time ago, but there’s no news on them!”

Ian would have groaned, but he had lives to save.

“Assemble a squad! We’re going to blow those up!”

“Sir, yessir!”, Laa’ka saluted, and ran off.

“Commander!”, Raven greeted cheerfully, skidding to his other side. “Did I just hear that we are going behind enemy lines?”, he continued in a flirty tone.

“We are.”

“Great, because I just got back from scouting the route with the greatest views, only for you!

“Okay, you are in.”

“YES!!”, Raven cheered with his fist.

“But please, abstain from getting yourself captured... You’re lucky Dani loves you.”

“Aren’t we all, sir?”, the ARF shrugged, and threw a thermal detonator over the cover.

Ian huffed a laugh, and kept shooting.

Not long after Laa’ka returned, with Match, Apollo and Venus close by.

“Team assembled, sir.”

“Good job. Alright, troopers, here’s the thing: we’re going to follow Raven behind enemy lines and blow up the mortars. No funny business: we accomplish our objective and return immediately. Am I understood?”

“Yessir!”, they chorused.

“Watch each other’s backs”, the Commander nodded to emphasize his order. “Eyes open, cold mind, warm heart.”

“Eyes open, cold mind, warm heart!”

“Let’s go!”

 

Raven was damn good at his job. He was a pimp who claimed to let himself be captured to gather intel, and damn they were starting to believe that. Was Dani aware of that? If not, she was going to be livid when she found out. Not that she would hear of it from any of them, no. Either Raven told her personally or she found out on her own.

Along their path, the enemy presence was minimal and easy to subdue. Ian snipped the communication droids and the others finished the job, Laa’ka cheering childishly and Match throwing an unnecessary amount of thermal detonators.

“Match, keep it down! We need these to blow up mortars, remember?”, Venus scolded him, notably altered by the whole situation.

“Chill, sister, I’m keeping count!”

“Listen to Venus, Match!”, Ian piped up like a father trying to settle down his kids.

“Yessir...”, he sounded disappointed as he refrained from tacking another bomb from his backpack.

“We’re almost there!”, Raven called. “Less than twenty meters, gents!”

“Copy that. Get in position!”, the Commander called, drawing his rifle and aiming for one of the mortars operators. His men (and woman) took aim to the surrounding droids. “Ready... Set... GO!”

The operator’s head blew up with the intensity of the blast as the others were peppered with weaker heat.

“Go, go, go!”, Ian motioned for Match and Laa’ka to set the charges as the others covered them.

They got caught in the routine: shoot, duck, shoot, shoot, roll, shoot, check your squadmates, shoot, shoot, dodge, check progress, shoot, shoot, shoot, duck—

“TAKE COVER!!!”, Match shouted.

Everybody scrambled to do so, jumping behind stones and some of the sparse trees of the rocky terrain. The charges went off, heat washing over them as metal pieces flew away.

Ian scrambled to his feet as soon as the ground stopped shaking.

“Sound off!”, he shouted.

“Apollo here!”

“Raven!”

“Laa’ka!”

“Match, sir!”

“Venus! I’m fine!”

“Do any of you have visual on any more objectives?”

“Two more mortars in my sights, sir!”, Laa’ka replied. “I’m on it!”

“Kid, wait! Don’t go without cover!”, Ian called, running after him.

Yeah, Laa’ka was ‘the kid’. Because he looked younger than the average trooper. Because he was reckless, but not in a ‘I have a death wish’ way, but in a ‘this is what I understand by ‘playing’’ way. And yes, he was an ARC, but in moments like these, he was naive. He loved Dani in ways he didn’t even understand, and was doing too many craziness to impress her.

Once they got back to base he was going to have a serious conversation with him—

Ian heard the sound of an activating lightsaber. For a second, his brain betrayed him and he thought that his General had made it back and was right there with them, hidden, ready to strike at the enemy...

But no. She would have called. She would have asked for intel before arriving.

He saw Asajj Ventress emerge from among the thick smoke caused by the detonations, red saber illuminating her shadowy features as she lurched for Laa’ka.

“KID!!!”, Ian screamed, and dove to tackle the ARC.

He shrieked in pain as the burning heat stabbed through his abdomen, Laa’ka falling to the ground, barely dodging the weapon and landing flat on his ass, gaze fixed on Ian as his pained scream died and he fell to the floor, unmoving.

“COMMANDER!!!”, he shouted in desperation.

“Don’t worry, clone”, Ventress snarled, pointing her blade towards him. “You’ll be joining him soon...”

Unfortunately, she reacted in time to block Venus’ shot. The others joined her, training their blasters on her. It looked like the Sith apprentice was ready to take on them, but another explosion went off in the distance and her comm. beeped.

“Mistress! The Jedi has attacked us from the east flank! They are blowing up our supplies!”, a droid cried.

“Then stop them!”, she shouted into the comm. while reflecting the clones incessant rain of fire.

“Uh, we—“, the droids speech was cut off as a lightsaber sliced through it.

Asajj snarled again in rage, glaring daggers at the troopers before leaping away.

“Commander!”, Apollo called, dropping to his knees beside him and checking for a pulse.

Ian gasped loudly, chest spasming. The medic turned him over as quickly and gently as he could and started unbuckling his armour.

“What do you need?”, Raven asked him.

“Not to get shot at, so keep a damn perimeter!”, Apollo snapped, but nobody called him out on it as they moved into position. “Commander! Ian, can you hear me?”

Laa’ka crawled closer to the downed Commander, mind buzzing with fear and cluelessness and heart thrumming so loudly that he could barely hear anything. He reached out and held Ian’s hand.

 

BURN. Ian’s word was on fire. It hurt like hell and he wanted to scream, but he didn’t have enough presence of mind to do it. He could see... A brother, there was a brother there with him, thanks the Force...

_Ian._

A voice. But that didn’t make sense, he couldn’t make head or tail of the noises that reached his ears...

_Ian!_

Dani?

_Ian, stay with me! Ian, please!_

She sounded desperate. He wanted to reassure her, but...

Somebody was holding his hand. He tried to turn his head, barely managing a centimetre. There was someone else... another brother...? Yes... No... Dani...? No, the bluish figure had her nose, her chin, her eyebrows; but the eyes, the hair, were darker, and she was... older...

Everything went dark.

 

It could have been a second, or an eon. The world seeped into existence around him, some parts like smoke, others like water, until it all solidified around him, and Ian found himself standing at the edge of a garden with a large table in it, a house nearby.

“Come in!”, someone sitting at the table waved him over.

He hesitated for a moment, but the atmosphere felt... inviting. He swung the modest gate open and stepped inside. The one that had greeted him had gotten up and was walking to him with a warm smile.

“Ian, am I right?”, she asked politely, offering a hand.

“Yeah”, he replied, feeling lightheaded.

“Should I bring over another chair, Miss Luna?”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary, 99. Ian is not going to stay for long”, the woman smiled at him. “Could you keep an eye on Hevy and his batchmates? I just want to make sure that they don’t burn the cookies...”

99 laughed wholeheartedly.

“Sure, Miss Luna. Nice seeing you, Commander Ian”, he nodded before walking away.

Ian just blinked, not able to tell what was off.

“I know I just refused a chair of your own, but would you like sitting down so we can talk?”

Her voice was so soft and calm... Ian nodded.

She walked to a set of free chairs and gestured for him to take a seat. Just as he sat down, somebody touched his arm.

“Thread?”

“Hello, Commander”, he smiled from the chair right next to him. “Nice of you to drop by.”

Ian frowned at him, trying to make the connection, to make click whatever was bothering him—

“Have you met Cabur yet? A good man: turns out he trained with Dani on Kamino.”

“ _Su cuy'gar_!”, Cabur waved from his chair opposite of Thread.

Ian just... waved back.

“May I have him for a moment, boys?”, the woman piped up without any bite.

The Commander turned to her.

“Who... are you?”, he finally managed to ask.

“My name is Lian. I am Dani’s mother.”

“It can’t be”, he blurted out. “Dani says her mother is dead. She still cries for her.”

“...I know”, Lian averted her gaze with a sad smile.

And then it clicked. He turned abruptly to Thread.

“You died weeks ago.”

“Yeah”, he replied, not bothered at all by the statement, and kept drinking his beer.

Ian turned to the woman sitting on front of him, only to stare at his own hands.

“Am I dead?”, he asked, arms shaking.

“Not quite”, Lian answered. “Your heart still beats. Your brothers are taking care of you. We only thought to bring you here so you didn’t have to be alone in the dark”, she explained, mixing a drink and placing a straw in it.

“Where is _here_?”

“I don’t know”, she shrugged. “The Force? The afterlife? I don’t know enough to tell. When I got here, this was a pretty gloomy place: lots of darkness, plenty of your brothers worriedly watching the living. I was like them for some time: watching over Ducky, worrying that she would do something stupid or that she would be unhappy... And then she packed up to go to another galaxy. And I followed her. Damn, if I followed her. She met Yaddle and I knew she would be safe for the time being. My daughter had pulled her shit together, so I couldn’t be less! I discovered that I could bend this place. So I build my home, and we greet any clone that marches away.”

“Is everybody here?!”

“Well, Keeli and the 64th guys are spending the day at the beach, but... Pretty much, yeah.”

“I—I—”

“This is a lot, I know.”

“This changes everything! How we understand life, how we—”

“Honey, you probably won’t remember a thing when you wake up”, Lian interrupted him softly, shaking her head. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t discuss things in the meantime.”

“Is that Ian?!”, somebody called.

They turned to see a white skinned woman with dark hair walking towards them with a beaming smile.

“A pleasure to meet you”, she continued, offering a hand before sitting down. “I’m Shmi Skywalker.”

The Commander’s eyes went wide with surprise.

“I... A pleasure to meet you, ma’am”, he stuttered, and glanced at Lian.

“Yes, I know: she isn’t a clone, but neither am I, so...”

“We run this place together.”

“And tweak some things here and there in the living world...”

_Ducky, this is Anakin. Anakin, this is Ducky. Be nice to each other, okay?_

_The Tongue Batch, Dani! Snap out of it! They need you!_

_Yes, you will look fabulous in this vest, but hear me out... Make it DEEP BLUE..._

_Hello there, Mister Fashion Designer... Wouldn’t you say it’s time for change? Don’t you think it would be neat to go back to austere designs?_

_It’s okay, honey, you can trust the Lawquanes. Allow yourself this..._

_You will send these cadets to_ The Unruly _. NO, not_ The Resolute _, not_ The Negotiator! The Unruly _, you hear me?_ The Unruly!

_Plo Koon, Ducky. That’s right! Clever girl!_

“You can influence events?”

“Not big ones”, Shmi shook her head. “Not fast enough to stop things that have been building for months or years. We have to rely on the butterfly effect.”

“It’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing”, Lian added.

Ian remained silent, processing everything that had been said.

“Maybe we should have taken it slow...”, Shmi commented quietly after a while.

“Well, maybe but, like, we are running out of time, and he is not going to remember any of this.”

“What if I do?”, Ian asked without looking at them.

He was met with silence. Slowly, Lian knelt in front of him and held his hand.

“Then I want you to know that I am very thankful that you are taking care of Dani”, she said softly, voice full of emotion. “And if you do remember about us, please... Remember her that I love her...”

 

He didn’t remember falling into the dark again, but he must have at some point, because everything was black when awareness came back to him.

“Ian?”, a voice asked, soft but insistent.

It took him a minute to notice the gentle brush of a thumb against his knuckles. When he managed to open his eyes, everything was blurry, and he could almost make out the silhouette of somebody sitting near him... Or was it a chair with clothes pilled up on it...?

Warmth seeped up his arm and through his chest and head, providing a sense of safety and making everything a bit clearer.

“Dani...”, he croaked.

“Hey, there”, she greeted with a tiny smile, and turned away. “Shades! Apollo! He has replied!”

The CMO and his second walked into view, and Apollo offered him a cup of water with a straw.

“Drink slowly”, he reminded him.

Ian complied. He would have drank it all, but he didn’t have enough energy to even try.

“What... happened...?”, he asked with a wince, his mind muddy and slow.

“Ventress decided to turn you into a morsel. You have been soaking in bacta for a week”, Shades explained slowly. “You’ll be staying here for a couple days and have to take it slow for a week.”

“Hm”, Ian sounded, in something resembling agreement. He was still tired.

“Is there anything you need? Something hurts?”, Apollo asked.

“No...”, he exhaled. “Just tired...”

“Okay, then. Call us if you need anything. I’ll be in my office.”

“I’m going to make the rounds. I’ll be close by.”

“Thanks”, Dani nodded as the men retreated. “We REALLY need a TIC, huh?”

Ian huffed a short laugh.

“You... okay?”, he asked, frowning at her.

“Yeah. Worried about you”, she answered, squeezing his hand slightly.

He squeezed back as well as he could.

“I stopped feeling you”, she blurted out, eyes unfocused. “I was doing my thing and suddenly you weren’t there anymore.”, her voice shook. “I called and Apple told me that you were alive but I wouldn’t believe him. They had to let me see you during surgery because I was freaking out and I would have caused a blackout”, she sniffed.

Ian squeezed harder.

“I’m sorry”, he mused.

“ _I_ am sorry”, she huffed, drying her tears with her free hand. “Laa’ka told me what happened. He was feeling like shit. At least we could cry together. He guess he will come to talk, eventually...”

Ian nodded minutely.

“Do you want to go back to sleep?”, she asked softly, aware of his exhaustion.

“Yeah...”

“Alright. Rest up. We have organised a movie night with your favourite movies for once you feel better: _Moana_ and _The Treasure Planet_ ”, she smiled.

“You sure packed a lot of movies...”, he chuckled.

“Yeeeeeeaaaaaah...”, she said, eyes darting around. “Fifteen years old priorities, I guess”, she shrugged sheepishly.

“I like Chief Tui’s voice...”, Ian commented sleepily.

“Me too”, Dani smiled as her friend fell asleep. “Me too.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I totally set up a cozy Afterlife for the clones because I can't deal with their deaths, okay? Don't call me out on it  
> Also Force Moms rulz!
> 
> Crappy drawing of Ian made by me


	26. The 0th Masterlist (not part of the story)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I thought of making this list because there's like... A lot of OC's in this fic. They pop out of nowhere, I swear, it's just that when an unknown clone appears, I'm like: you get a name! And you get a name! EVERYBODY GETS A NAME!  
> So yeah. List that I will update every now and then. And with that I mean that I will be closing and opening the tab every time I remember that I had to add something or someone else.  
> Feel free to ask questions or suggest stuff
> 
> Also, there's memes in the comments of chapter 24, if someone wants to check it out or join in

-Dani "Ducky" Luna, the main OC. Lesbian butch, short curly hair, brown skin. Wears hoodies, button up shirts, jeans, boots and armour. Has a map of Earth tattooed over her right shouderblade

-Lian Luna, Dani's mother. Filipina, long hair, a total badass: smart and strong, Sol totally fell for her. Died abruptly and now runs some sort of Afterlife while watching over her daughter

-Sol, Dani's father: ex-pilot for the Republic, ended up on Earth, met Lian, had a daughter. Decided to go back to his galaxy to try and end the war/free his brothers. Nobody really knows where he is. But he was a good dad

-Naai'na'ra: Dani's significant other, from a species that isn't found in Republic Space. Not quite humanoid, but who cares. Has her own turf in Separatist Space.

 

Members of the 0th

-Commander Ian (CC-8889), voted best uncle by Dani. Her partner in crime. Damn good with sniper rifle. He has a black "x" cross painted over the left pectoral of his armour. Helmet finn painted black, with two thick diagonal stripes that are born at the base of it and go backwards. Has a kama, but sometimes doesn't wear it. Has the nicest beard in the 0th

-Pedal (n.n.a.a.t.m.), Dani's Prime Pilot, aka Glorified Driver because she can't pilot for shit. Doesn't mind as long as he gets to fly. You know that slim lines used in mangas to give a sensation of high speed? That's what he has painted over his armour

-Compass: pilot

-Maps: pilot

-Laa'ka (CT-6783). ARC trooper, looks younger than most clones for some reason. May have a crush on Ducky despite knowing she won't reciprocrate. Content with being friends but still does dumb shit to impress her. Has a crescent moon painted over his helmet, (pretty big, covers most of the helmet's face) that matches the smaller tattoo on his face. White stars painted all over his kama

-Raven (no number assigned at the moment), ARF trooper, super chill, kind of a masochist, feels extasiated when thinking that no matter what trouble he is in his General is going to get him out of it. Damn good at his job and he knows it. Went ballistic with the black paint, and now his armour could be described as absolutelly black with the thin outline of feathers all over him. Looks rad as heck

-Shades (CT-8888), CMO of the 0th, named that way because he is a cool guy and will totally wear shades even indoors once the war is over. Soft boi, also voted best uncle by Dani. Chest plate painted black at exception of a small fraction right in the middle of his lower ribs, immitating sunglasses.

-Apollo (n.n.a.a.t.m.), medic, Shades right hand. Named by Dani after the god of healing and music. A bit stressed. Has musical language written all over his armour

-Apple (n.n.a.a.t.m.), also medic, Apollo's right hand. Named like that because "an apple a day keeps the doctor away". Was kinda a joke but thanks to it he gets free apples often. He does NOT have apples drawn on his armour. Really. Yes, really. .............................Okay he has one on the shoulder bell that doesn't hold the medic cross

-Match (n.n.a.a.t.m.), this guy likes explosives. Let him handle the thermal detonators. Volunteers to take guard in The Underbelly

-Thread (n.n.a.a.t.m.), now dead, but he was going to get promoted to Captain. He was a good guy. Sorry I killed you. Used to try to replicate Dani's curls on his armour

-Venus (n.n.a.a.t.m.), trans woman, knows what needs to be done and does it. Black vines and thorns painted all over her limbs, with the maws of the Felucian Flesh-eating Venus decorating her helmet

-Feather (n.n.a.a.t.m.), air operations specialist, is Lieutenuant when they have their feet on the ground. Wants to glide more often (so does Dani). Also feather-themed armour, bickers a lot with Raven about it. Main difference is that his feathers are colorful

-Grey, the loth cat. Spends most of her time in the Greenhouse, the barracks or the medbay. Loves to be petted and keeps the crew mentally stable in return

-Bubble: infantry trooper, naturally cheerful. Lotsa circles cahotically drawn

-Ratchet: part of the mechanical crew. Picks up "special deliveries"

-Course: naval officer. Really, really likes big ships

-Shiver (n.n.a.a.t.m.): damn good with algorithms and computers in general. A bit of a show-off, but who can be mad about it? Writes random lines of code over his armour. Those are actually cheat sheets

-Moss (n.n.a.a.t.m.): ground trooper. Dani once went "man i LOVE moss" and then he was like "hey if i name myself moss she'll instantly like me?????". Then he turned his attention to the moss and he likes it. Especially the vibrant green ones. Has moss drawn at the DETAIL, almost as if he painted it with needles. Would like it to be green but has to make do with black and white

-Breeze (n.n.a.a.t.m.): medic-psychologist, picked up from a rough ambient and sent to the Jedi Temple to learn psychology under Bant and then sent to the 0th to work with troopers who had been mistreated/lost trust in their commanding officers. Non-binary, pronouns they/them

-Gossip: the 0th's Intel Coordinator. Does paperwork 24/7, has dirt on EVERYONE. Enjoys his job very much. Never leaves the ship, so never wears his armour. Legend says it's pristine outside, but he writes the dirtiest secrets he knows in the inside

-Prophet: works at the same level as Gossip. Got his name because when betting, his choice is always the winner. Force-sensitive for sure, but he doesn't want to talk about it

-Kasta: Admiral in charge of The Unruly. Aphatic, doesn't really seem to care about anything, with only a few exceptions, like keeping the ship functioning 

 

The guys from Kamino

-Unruly (CT-6454), Dani's best friend during their time training, off doing Force knows what. Probably enjoying life for once

-Sal (CT-6456), trans woman, good friends with Ducky, will become a heavy gunner. MIA with her squad

-Zero (n.n.a.a.t.m.), big brother energy, a bit insecure. MIA with his squad

-Bee (n.n.a.a.t.m.), a bit of a duche at the beginning, now quite laid back. MIA with his squad

-Cabur (n.n.a.a.t.m.), loves animals, protective of the three above. Sadly, KIA. Now chills in the Afterlife and makes a move to save his MIA siblings [Their story here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18239900)

-Bold (CT-6450), an asshole, maybe he has improved with time

-CT-6448

-CT-6451

-CT-6452

-Kov (CC-8384), Commander material, very bossy

-Lace (n.n.a.a.t.m.)

-Drop (n.n.a.a.t.m.), a kind man, connected with Ducky quite quickly

-Ruler (n.n.a.a.t.m.): a control freak or very meticulous when mesuring distances and sizes? We will never know

-Pebble (n.n.a.a.t.m.): a simple man, but a responsible one

-CC-8782: one of the only two that still hadn't decided on a name by the time he reached Command Training

 

Special mentions:

-Aleluia (CT-9543), Dani's adopted son, now living with Yaddle and training on the Force. Excited about having two moms

-Sound (n.n.a.a.t.m.), from the Coruscant Guard, a nice guy. Wavy red paterns on his armour

-Sound's partner. We still don't know his name but it is rumoured he was promoted to Captain...

-Steer (n.n.a.a.t.m.): GAR's Naval Officer. Got tangled in keeping an eye on (SPOILER OF CHAPTER 38) with (SPOILER OF CHAPTER 38). Did not know he would have to deal with  _that_

 _-_ Spunky: battle droid

 

The smuggled away

-Last: shinny. Very, very shinny. Was the first of his group to take control of his fate

-Beam: ex 47th, blinded

-Woody: got his feet blown up by a mine. Was kind of a leader when he was staying in The Underbelly

-Sea: ex 501st, lost his right arm. Learning to use his left. Paints mandalas and gives them away as gifts

-Metal: Pedal's batchmate, they went to pilot training with Dani. One of the firsts to be smuggled away. Stays wherever the clones are send to support them and help them adapt to the change

-Kaboom: his name is very descriptive. As usually happens, he was one of those who don't assimilate well that they were slaves and couldn't bring himself to admit that the Republic was wrong. He's better now

-Nail: ex-Sergeant of the 0th. Asked to be smuggled. Sassy

-Lax: veteran of the 0th. Deserved retirement. Also, somebody had to keep an eye on the shinnies

-Around 200 clones more who I can't name even if I wanted to ;_;


	27. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluff and lore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyy I'll be going on vacation the first two weeks of August, so I don't know if I'll have time to write/post... Just wanted you to know that if I disappear for two weeks I'm not dead, and neither is the fic

“Here, hold her”, Sol said, gently passing their daughter to Lian, who took her and sat her on the sand between her legs.

Little Luna gurgled and patted at the sand vigorously.

Sol adjusted the diving equipment on his back.

“I’ll be back soon.”

“Be careful”, Lian nodded. “And good luck.”

He leaned back down to kiss her before turning towards the sea. Sol had never thought an ocean could be so pretty. It was nothing like the dark, threatening waters of Kamino—Well, yes, it was during rain season, but in days like this, he was left in awe at the light colour of the sea, the seashells lying around the beach and the crystal clear water.

He heard distressed sounds and turned around to see his daughter trying to crawl after him.

“Dad will be back soon, baby girl!”, he called, doing his best not to walk to her immediately and rock her until she calmed down.

“Luna, look!”, her mother told her, turning her around and taking a plastic shovel out of the bag they had brought with them. “This is a shovel. Do you want to try to build things with sand? Or we could collect seashells.”

“Gah!”, she babbled, patting the sand before trying to reach for the shovel.

Sol rowed away hearing his wife and daughter laugh.

It took him a while to get to the spot, and yet he had to recalculate a bit. In the almost three years that had passed since he arrived on Terra, the currents had dragged _The Shooting Star_ a little away from where it sunk. There had been quite a commotion shortly after his arrival: the military had come and the beach had been closed for two long weeks. He didn’t know what they had done to his ship (probably scavenge as much technology as they could), but at least they hadn’t taken the whole vessel. Armed men had knocked and searched all houses in the island. They must have been expected to find someone more... different, because they didn’t even ask him for a documentation that Lian had rushed to provide, just in case.

The fastest way to provide said documentation legally?

Marrying.

Of course, at the moment Sol didn’t know that, and Lian had treated him like a guest all along. Only after months and months, when he had informed himself and asked her to marry him, she had broke down laughing, telling him that they had been officially a couple all along.

He smiled around the breathing device, and took one last steady breath of fresh air before diving into the water. The ship’s structure had become an ecosystem for life  to thrive: algae and coral had fought each other for the surface it offered, and fishes and other sea animals now lived and swam around. Sol had a knife strapped to his leg, just in case something decided it felt like protecting its territory or finding out how humans tasted. He entered through the same trap door he had used to escape drowning. Air bubbles floated to the surface, and he took a moment to watch them go, the sun shinning from above.

Lots of unidentified things swam away as he pulled himself inside, checking his surroundings before attempting anything. With nothing dangerous in sight, he proceeded. Just as he thought: the ship had been scavenged. The control panels had been teared away, dangling in suspension by protected wires, and there was no way an animal or the current had managed to do it. Sol sill decided to check, carefully prodding around with his knife in case a moray or something alike was hiding in the dark. More critters swam away, some trying to bite at the steel before calling it a day and darting past him.

...Nothing to recover behind the control panels. Well, he was just checking, after all. His hopes were laid somewhere else. The communications array was placed right behind a panel so mundane that he doubted that the people of this planet had thought it was something else other than a welding line. Sol quickly swam up to inspect the plastoid slate—Bingo! It seemed to be intact. The scavengers must have been content with taking whatever was more on hand. He plucked the tip of the knife at the edge to use as lever. It took a few minutes of effort, but the panel bulged and water filled the inside. A spark of panic flared inside his chest, fearing that the equipment was going to become too damaged to use, but as the plastoid fell away, he saw another plastoid box inside. He gave the most resemble thing to a sigh that he could give underwater, and set to unplug it. Something would irremediably get in contact with the liquid, but he had to risk it. With the box in his hands, he swam for the exit. The box wouldn’t slip past the trap, but a couple of hits fixed that. He closed the door behind him and swam to the surface.

Sol climbed into the boat and stripped himself from the diving equipment, doing a quick check of the communications array as he rested up a bit before padding to shore again. He hoped that he could salvage the long-range transmitter and power it up with local tech. He didn’t need to reach the Republic, only somebody that passed by... Even if this planet still hadn’t made official contact with life from other planets, surely there would be some sort of space traffic around, even if it was edging the system.

With that half-cooked plan, he set on returning to land to spend the day at the beach with his family.

“You found it?”, Lian asked as he approached.

Sol nodded and set the box next to their belongings.

“Did Luna behave?”, he asked with a smile, crouching beside her to kiss his daughter.

The toddler chirped in delight and made an attempt to hug her father.

“Yeah, we had fun building a tunnel”, Lian smirked, gesturing to a pile of wet sand. “It kind of sunk. They should fire whoever was in charge of it.”

Sol chuckled. “It’s okay to fail”, he said to Luna. “You’ll get better at it with each try.”

“You should have seen her, though. She wanted to follow you, like a ducky!”, Lian giggled.

Sol noticed that she had turned to her mother and was smiling.

“Did you like that word?”, he asked. “Ducky?”

She turned to him and giggled.

“Ducky!”, he repeated with a smile, and the toddler laughed louder, clapping her hands clumsily. “She likes it!”, he told Lian.

“Ducky!”, she called too, and got the same reaction.

“How’s that for a nickname? Ducky!”

“She does seem to like it.”

“That’s how my brothers and I would get our names”, he commented with a nostalgic smile, gently caressing his daughter’s small fingers. “From simple conversations. We would catch a word that we liked or a batchmate would point out a quality of yours, and bam! Your name.”

“It’s not what I’m used too, but doesn’t seem like a bad method either”, Lian shrugged.

“It’s what we had”, he muttered. “Thanks for agreeing to let her choose her name.”

“I liked the idea”, she smiled.

“Da!”, Ducky called, staring at her father.

The couple’s eyes went wide.

“Is she...?”

“Shh!”, Lian hushed him.

“She’s gonna say ‘dad’...!”, he whisper-shouted, eyes shinning.

“Da!”, Luna tried again.

They leaned closer, wishing, for once, that they could mute the sounds of the ocean.

“Dagy!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative take:  
> Ducky: Da!  
> Sol: omg she is going to say dad!  
> Ducky: Da!  
> Sol: I can't believe I'm going to be her first word!  
> Ducky: Buir  
> Lian: ¬¬


	28. Dog of the Chancellor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Dani was doing instead of being with Ian and her men

“The objective is Senator Taa.”

“Scare or kill?”

“Scare.”

Dani tsked. For a Senator that she would rather murder...

“Anything in particular? A message or something?”

“As long as it is clear that he is to support the bill, do whatever it takes”, Palpatine explained slowly.

“You sure I can’t kill him?”

“Yes, General Luna, you have heard my orders well”, he almost snarled.

She glared daggers at him, sitting in a corner of the gunship as Pedal drove her to Coruscant.

“I appreciate your... eagerness, but you WILL do as I say.”

Dani didn’t even bothered hiding her disdain.

“Stick to what you signed, General.”

And he ended the transmission.

She threw the comm against the opposite wall with a grunt.

“Everything okay?”, Pedal asked through the speakers.

“Peachy!”, she snarled, and crossed her arms before leaning back and banging her head against the durasteel. It kinda hurt but her pride bore it for her.

Why was she even angry about it? She already knew the old man wanted her as an assassin to do dirty work. He could be sending her to murder Sidious, but no, stay here and help me become more powerful. She did it because that was the only thing keeping her from getting fired. So, scare Taa. That was easy, she could just go full poltergeist, that made everybody shit their pants, but how was she supposed to make him lean towards supporting the bill?

_You could just bribe him with some snacks..._ , a voice inside her huffed.

“Arriving at LZ in five, sir”, the pilot informed her. “Should I wait onboard?”

“You don’t have to”, Dani sighed. “I would be grateful if you could drop by at 79’s and check if somebody has replied to my callout or there’s some interesting rumours, but for the rest do what you want. I was thinking of leaving tomorrow afternoon so we can have lunch with Aleluia?”

“You’ll go with Yaddle, sir?”

“I was inviting you, actually.”

“Oh. Ah... sure. I’m free.”

“Cool. I’ll call him and get back to you with the time and place.”

“Copy that.”

Soon after, Pedal and Dani waved each other goodbye as they parted ways. Luna wore her favourite black hoodie, jeans and black boots with sewn red roses. It was an exotic choice to walk with around Coruscant, but she didn’t mind. No matter the culture, with a brief glance everybody could tell that the baggy and plain clothes didn’t carry any status or message.

Like that, she made her way to the Senate building, greeting the Guards as she passed the security check and heading for the offices. She enjoyed the quiet of the quite late hour, taking a deep breath before lazily ringing a bell and leaning against the wall.

“Oh. Greetings!”, a golden droid rose a hand mechanically.

“Hi, C-3PO”, Dani smirked, remembering the stories Wolffe had grumbled at her about the protocol droid, “Is Senator Amidala here?”

Of course she was there. She could feel her.

“She is. But she is very busy!”, he added quickly, trying to wave her off.

She moved quickly to stop him from closing the door on her.

“I know, I know, but I need her advice on something!”

C-3PO seemed to doubt, but still leaning towards leaving her out.

“Come on, you know I won’t take long! And I never cause any ruckus!”

“Hum”, the droid hummed. “You certainly are one of the few people to come into this office that extends that courtesy”, he nodded, stepping aside. “But if the Senator walks out of this room speaking about finding a serial killer with you, I will be very, very upset!”, he warned, pointing at her with an accusing finger.

“You’re the best”, she winked at him as she strode inside.

C-3PO let out a yelp and walked away, mumbling something too fast for Dani to understand.

“Padmé?”, she called as she walked deeper into the office.

“Dani?”, she called back as they came into each other’s view. “What are you doing here? I heard the 0th was called at the front”, the Senator continued, walking up to her to give a hug in greeting.

“Ian is taking care of it”, she replied, squeezing her lightly. “I... need your advice. As a fellow woman”, she said, staring straight at her eyes.

Padmé’s expression hardened and she gave a sharp nod.

“Of course. Why don’t we go for a stroll?  You’ll help me get my thoughts off my problems”, the woman said cheerfully as she gathered some things. “PO, we’re going out!”, she called.

“I knew it!”, the droid’s offended cry reached their ears.

“We’ll be back soon!”, she reassured him, tugging at Dani by her wrist.

They made small talk as they made their way to the most public rooms of the building, looking to avoid possible bugs. They went to the mostly empty cafeteria and sat at a random table, avoiding corners and being too close to other people. Padmé ordered a cup of caff and Dani a thingy that was like the middle point between pudding and ice cream. It was the closest thing to vanilla she had found.

“You have a job from him?”, Amidala whispered, staring at her mug.

“Yeah”, Dani replied in the same manner, shoving a spoonful of the sweet in her mouth.

“Kill?”

“No.”

The Senator sighed, relieved.

“What do you need my help for?”

“I have to intimidate Taa. But how do I point him towards doing what I want him to do without revealing myself?”

“Prf!”, Padmé shook her head. “Do you not know Senator Taa?”

“I am glad to say that I do not have the pleasure.”

The other woman snorted, but still shook her head.

“He is the most superstitious man I have ever met. Whatever you do he will link it to his most recent decision and change his mind.”

“Well. That makes my job easier. But it sucks. Someone as weak-minded as him shouldn’t be a politician.”

“You tell me...” Padmé sighed.

“...I’m sorry I’m making things harder for you.”

“It’s okay. Having a warning is... useful. And thank you for trusting me with this. If the old man ever makes a suspicious move, we’ll have a lot to throw at him.”

“And from several fronts”, Dani nodded, finishing her pudding-ice cream. “Did you pass my counterarguments on the propaganda on Kamino to the Movement?”

“Force if I did!”, she chuckled. “They are livid. I warned them not to publish it so we could protect The Boss—”

“—I’m not ‘The Boss’—”

“—so they have been spreading it as a rumour and they even got clones to tell them their experiences! The news are overflowed with letters from the Movement!”

“That’s great! Isn’t it? Or it’s the pressure too high?”

“Nothing I can’t handle”, Padmé shrugged, gulping down what was left of her caff. “Now, I think we both have work to do”, she said, and stood up. “Are you coming up with me?”

“No: we have to play it as if I just didn’t tell you what I’m about to do. I’m gonna go pee, procrastinate a bit and then I’ll get to it.”

“As you wish. It’s been nice seeing you, Dani”, she added, offering another hug.

“Likewise, Padmé. Can’t wait for our next lunch date”, she smiled and finger-gunned.

The Senator replied with a light chuckle.

Ah, what a woman!

After that, Dani took her time to go back to the offices. Now the corridors were even quieter. She was considering that maybe Taa had retired for the night and gone to his apartment, but when she reached with the Force-sight she saw him there, with a couple of presences more.

Please, Force, don’t let her walk in to the Senator having sex...

She used the override card the Chancellor had provided her with and slipped inside when nobody was near the door.

Fortunately, nobody was having sex. Taa was just lying in bed with the two women that were almost always with him. Dani walked into the room, observing them with a blank expression. She stopped next to a table and pushed a pot to the floor.

“What was that?!”, the Senator bolted upright, startled.

Luna grinned, amused. She walked up to the wall and unhung a portrait, letting gravity do its thing.

“Did you see that?!”, he asked to his companions, pointing at the fallen picture. “That’s not...! That’s not possible!”

“It fell on its own!”, one of them gasped.

“What curse is this!”, the Senator exclaimed, getting up and clenching a pillow against his chest.

Dani snickered as she turned on all water taps in the office.

“Someone’s here!”, the other woman screeched.

“It can’t be! Our security is flawless!”

Luna almost breaks down laughing at that.

“We are cursed!”, Taa shrieked. “ _I_ am cursed! But why?! Is it...? Is it because of the bill? Is that it, avenging spirit?! Is that it?!

She ran to turn off the taps.

“Hah!”, he breathed. “I promise to change my ways, spirit! I will support the bill! But please, let us be!”, he pleaded.

Dani hung the portrait back up, and left.

She would have laughed, but that behaviours was quite pitiful. So she walked back to the Chancellor’s office, using the override card without knocking. Sheev gave her a scornfully look, at which she replied throwing the card on his table.

“It’s done”, she reported, crossing her arms.

“And you are positive that he will change his mind?”

“It looked too easy, but I did scare him”, she shrugged. “If that’s all...”

“Sit down”, he cut her. “I want to talk.”

Dani scrunched up her nose, but did take a seat. “About what?”

“Can’t an employer want to know their employee?”

_No_

She did not reply.

“I wanted to know your opinion on the Jedi order, since you don’t have any kind of cultural prejudice towards them and lived with them for a while.”

Okay... She wasn’t going to refuse a chance to talk shit.

“Overrated. Yeah, I understand the Force is a big deal and all, but... overrated. They believe themselves saints and run away from the Dark Side as if it were some lethal disease, and that only makes them more vulnerable to it, but they don’t seem to realise that. I left because I didn’t like their Code. ‘Don’t show affection’, what kind of bullshit is that? I’m going to get as cheesy as I want with whoever I want whenever I want and poor soul if someone tries to stop me. Anyways. What else. They are child abductors. I don’t care that their parents gave them away, that decision should be on the kids! When I was living with them I realised I was the only person there who had met their parents!”, she threw her hands into the air before lowering them to her hair and sighing deeply. “And the whole Jedi-Sith fight? I read about the genocides committed by both sides. ‘Fight against light and darkness’, my ass. Maybe they should just stop trying to kill each other and coexist.”

“I see”, Palpatine nodded slowly. He seemed suspiciously pleased. “I’d wish more people saw it the way you do.”

“I have noticed the cultural influence you have mentioned”, she shrugged. “I wouldn’t give my kids away to a bunch of monks just because they can wield the ‘power of the galaxy’ or whatever. I think the decision should be the child’s, and only the child’s.”

“You have mentioned that the Jedi slip away from the Dark Side. Do you not?”, he leaned forwards, joining his fingertips with his elbows resting on the table.

“...The Jedi seem to relate the Dark with a specific set of skills”, she said carefully. “I do not try to avoid that set of skills, but I don’t try to dig further either. So what if a skill or a power is brought up by love, and the other by fear or rage? The Force gives me the solution I need through my natural reaction, and that’s all I need and care about.”

“Have you ever felt the fear?”, he asked, and his voice had something TOO suspicious in it. “The rage?”

“I fight in a war, Palpatine”, she rolled her eyes. “Yes, I have. Of course I have.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What about it?”

“Nothing”, she replied dryly.

“Nothing?”, he blinked, leaning back in mild... confusion?

“Look, it’s late, I’m tired. I can’t even think of more ways to talk shit about the Jedi. Are we done here?”, she huffed, standing up.

“I—”

“Cool, good night, see you ‘round.”

 

It was very late in the night. A part of her didn’t want to disturb Yaddle, but the other insisted that she had to call ahead.

“Dani?”

“Hey, Yaddle”, she greeted with a yawn.

“Late it is. Alright, are you?”

“Yeah, actually, I’m on Corsucant. Do you mind if I come to sleep to the Temple?”

“Oh, come, come! Happy to see you, Aleluia will! Wake him, should I?”

“Let him sleep. I’m on my way.”

“A bed ready, you will have”, Yaddle giggled.

The guards at the entrance stopped her, but the Jedi Master came to greet her and ordered them to let her pass. Dani gave them a smug smile as she walked past them.

Yaddle smacker her leg lightly, but didn’t scold her.

“Do you think I could sleep with Aleluia?”, she asked with a whisper.

“A bed apart, I have readied”, the other hummed. “But as you please, you do. Your son, he is”, she shrugged.

Dani gave an unnerved smile. She LOVED Aleluia, she really did, but every time someone referred at him as her son she felt the crushing weight of responsibility on her shoulders: was she good enough? Could she give him what he really needed when she was away for most of the time? Didn’t he deserve better?

Yaddle smacked her again.

“Stop worrying”, the elder grumbled. “Alone, you are not”, she added, looking up at her.

“...Thank you”, she croaked.

“Hm”, Yaddle nodded as they arrived to the door to her quarters.

“That, his room is”, she said quietly, pointing at a door at their left. “Meditating I will be, if you need me.”

“Thank you, Yaddle”, she whispered wholeheartedly.

Giving each other a smile, they turned in opposite directions. Dani walked slowly into the dark of Aleluia’s room. She waited a moment so her eyes would adjust to the lack of light, and managed to see the outline of the bed and the figure sleeping on it. She moved with careful steps, smiling as she realised that the tiny obstacles were toys. Luckily, nothing squeaked or beeped at her presence and light touch. Luna stood by his bedside, thinking about her next move. Her hand slipped into a pocket of her pants absentmindedly, retrieving her phone and turning it on the see the reply she had finally gotten from Naai through, like, seven different contacts all over the galaxy:

_What do you mean you have adopted a child without telling me???!!!_

_Pics or it didn’t happen_

_I love you both. Cuddles and chirps_

Dani huffed a laugh. She really had thought her significant other was angry at her and she had feared that she would cut all contact with her.

She turned down the device and lightly brushed Aleluia’s shoulder.

“Hm...?”, he mused sleepily.

“Aleluia”, she called softly.

“Mom?”, he asked with surprise, rubbing his eyes to try and see her.

“Can I lie down with you?”

His reply was to shot up his arms and pull her into a hug. Dani yelped and rolled carefully to land beside him on the bed before hugging him back.

“Missed you...”, Aleluia mussed into her chest.

“Missed you too”, she replied, wiggling a bit to be able to kiss his cheek.

Aleluia kissed her back.

 

“Oh, I just remembered!”, Dani piped up the morning after, interrupting the game they had going on with Aleluia and setting the clone trooper figure down. “I got a message from your other mom. She would like to have a picture of you.”

His eyes lighted up even more, if that was possible. He was... impossibly cute, dressed in Jedi robes and all that happiness irradiating from him, his hair messy in a fashionable way. Did he style it so it looked like this?

“Yes! Yes! Let’s take a picture together!”, he exclaimed, jumping to his feet.

Dani’s smile grew wider at his reaction.

“Okay, then”, she said, taking out her phone. “Where should be take the pic? Your room? A garden?”

“My room!”, he replied, and bolted around to leave the living room of Yaddle’s quarters.

_Wait_ , a cautious thought slammed her mind. _You can’t be in the photo. You can’t SEND the photo. It has to go through contacts. And if it reaches Naai, non-sympathizers would know your face AND Aleluia’s. Danger danger danger danger danger danger—_

Dani winced. She really, really wanted for Naai to be able to see their son. And she had already said it, and he was so happy with the idea, and—She couldn’t send the photo.

“Let’s take it here!”, Aleluia called, where he had already arranged his favourite toys around.

“Alright”, Dani said, brushing off the worry and sitting down on the chair to pull the kid to her lap. “Look at the camera and say: cheeeeeeeeeeese!”

“Cheeeeeeeeeeese!”

“We’re done”, she hummed, checking the picture.

“Are you going to send it to mom now?”, he asked, staring at the screen.

“I... I don’t think that I’m going to be able to send it to her. We can’t have direct contact, so that would mean that people who I don’t know might get a hold of our picture, and that would put us in danger”, she explained slowly.

“You have never told me about my other mom. Why can’t you speak directly to her? Is she in trouble?”, he turned his head to look at her in the eyes.

“I—If I tell you about her, you have to promise me not to tell anybody. Not your friends, not any adults, not anyone who you think is trustworthy, not even Yaddle, okay?”

“Okay!”, he replied immediately.

“Aleluia”, she said, her voice firm, and pulled him up so he was facing her fully. “This is serious. You can’t give even the slightest detail. We are doing very dangerous things, and it holds because everybody who is part of it keeps it secret. So I need you to promise.”

“I promise”, he nodded, with the seriousness that only the clone cadets could sport at that age.

“Alright”, Dani sighed, and made a quick sweep of the room. No goosebumps, no shivers; nothing to give away that it was unsafe to speak. “Her name is Naai’na’ra, but she lets me call her Naai. I’m sure she will let you call her that too, if you want.”

“Dani and Naai”, he said, eyes glittering. “My moms are Dani and Naai.”

“Yes”, she smiled despite herself. “But if somebody asks...”

“I don’t know what moms are. I’m a Jedi Initiate and I train under Yaddle.”

“Clever boy”, she nodded, booping his nose. “She lives very, very far away... And she is not human, in fact, I don’t even know her species name... She has deep blue skin and a pair of plate-thin mandibles to cover her teeth.”

“Oh...! Do you...? Do you have a picture...?”

“Sadly, no”, she shook her head.

“Oh...”, he mused, clearly disappointed. “Well, I can always try to draw her!”, he cheered up.

“Yeah”, she smiled briefly. “You... You know that the law is not always right?”, she asked carefully.

“It isn’t?”, he asked back, surprised. “I thought it was.”

“It isn’t”, she shook her head. “Law is made by those in power. And those in power are not always good people.”

“...Is that why we can’t talk to mom? You are doing... illegal things?”

Dani nodded.

“But you are not doing BAD things, right? If... If there’s bad people in power now, then the laws are bad, so you are doing GOOD things, right?”, his eyes twitched in confusion.

She settled a hand on his shoulder.

“I can’t tell you what’s good or bad, Aleluia. That you have to see for yourself. But yeah: Naai and I are doing this because we really believe that the law is wrong and that we are helping people.”

“And you are not go tell me what it is.”

“It’s safer this way”, she sighed.

“I understand.”

Dani startled, surprised by his answer.

“Really?”

“Yeah. You want to protect me. I... Thank you. Thank you for caring about me...”, he mumbled, eyes darting shyly.

Dani pulled him into a hug.

“You don’t have to thank me for that. Of course I care...”

“I love you, mom”, he whined, clutching at her clothes.

“I love you too”, he answered, leaning forward to kiss his hair. “I love you so much, and so does Naai, and grandma Yaddle, and my friend Pedal is going to love you too. And one day I will find my dad, and grandpa Sol is going to love you so much...”

They held each other until Aleluia calmed down, slowly pulling away from her.

“Sorry I cried”, he mused, rushing to dry his tears.

“You don’t have to apologize for that either”, she said, rubbing a tear off gently. “It’s okay to cry and let the hurt out. I cry a lot”, she smiled.

Aleluia smiled back.

“How about we get ready to go have lunch with Pedal, huh? I bet he is eager to meet you.”

 

“Pedal, this is Aleluia, my son. Ale, this is Pedal, my Prime Pilot.”

“Nice to meet you, kid”, the man smiled down at him, offering a hand.

“The pleasure is mine, sir!”, Dani gave him a small nudge. “I mean, mister.”

“So. Were are we going to eat?”

“Dex’s!”, Aleluia replied, bouncing on his feet.

“Dex’s it is”, Dani shrugged. “Unless you have another suggestion?”

“79’s?”, he shrugged back.

“I’m not taking Ale to 79’s”, she grumbled.

“What’s 79’s? Is it like Dex’s?”

“No, they have mostly drinks for adults and no good food”, Dani explained.

“Then I don’t want to go there.”

“Your mother goes there.”

“Do you?”

“We are going to Dex’s.”

“Mom!”

 

Aleluia and Pedal talked and laughed all along the meal. Dex perched himself with them and ended up finding out all about Dani and Aleluia, but he seemed... a good man. She found herself not minding that he knew that Ale was a clone and that she had adopted him. He also promised to keep the secret, and Luna believed him.

“If I am really your son, then my name is Aleluia Luna?”, he asked suddenly, staring at her.

Dani blinked.

“...I don’t know how your other mother name heritage goes, but yeah. Yeah: you are Aleluia Luna.”

His smile was priceless.

Pedal seemed to be enjoying the company and the food.

“Shit, sir, you have to find a way so we can pack this stuff to take away!”

“No swearing in front of my kid”, she scolded him. “And you think I haven’t tried? The best thing I can get us is pizza.”

“Dex, mate, wouldn’t you be willing to come with us, see the galaxy?”, Pedal tried, with what he must have thought was charm.

“Sorry, pal, but I’m dandy right where I am”, he gestured with his four arms to the restaurant.

Long after they finished their food, they left the place to accompany Aleluia back to the Temple. Dani had been feeling guilty for leaving Ian to carry the 0th. Damn, they really needed a TIC.

The streets were busy, but not too crowded. Aleluia and Pedal talked about spaceships and made fun every now and then of Dani for sucking so much at driving, and she teased them back. She was watching them fondly from behind, glad that they were getting along, when an icy feeling replaced the warmth she had been feeling.

_NO_

She leapt forward and tackled Aleluia to the ground, a blaster scorch smoking from the wall it had hit instead of his skull.

“SNIPER!”, Pedal called, and everybody ran to cover.

Dani picked Ale up and nodded at Pedal, and they ran off together.

“Are you cloaking us?”, the pilot asked with urgency.

“Yeah”, she replied, focused on running and doing her best to hold the trembling child in her arms.

“Give him to me, I’ll take him to the Temple!”, Pedal offered, spreading his arms.

“No!”, she replied without thinking. _No, what if they were attacked again and she wasn’t there to cloak them? What if there were more and they ganged up on Pedal and they were both killed? What if—_

“Dani, trust me with this!”, he pleaded. “Go after that motherfucker.”

And she hesitated again, for a step, two steps, three steps, fours steps...

“Be careful”, she said with anguish.

“You too”, he gave a reassuring nod as she passed Aleluia too him. “Let’s go to the Temple, kid. Your mom is going to give that idiot hell.”

Dani was already focusing on the presence she had grasped right before the shot was taken, and she jumped to a superior level with one leap.

She stalked it, letting it think nobody was following it.

The guy closed the thirteen locks of the door with her inside. They took off their boots and lay on the bed.

“Say goodbye to your kneecaps.”

 

Said kneecaps had been the first thing to be obliterated. The guy was telling her even what he ate the last month when Dani gasped loudly, a crushing void worming at her very soul.

_Ian_

She punched the guy unconscious and activated her comm:

“Pedal, come pick me up! We need to get back, NOW!

_Ian!_

_Ian, stay with me! Ian, please!_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me? Doing a reference of Boss because I can't wait to write a chapter with Delta Squad? It's more likely than you think


	29. Aboard The Negotiator

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 212th bonding time!

“You are late.”

Dani glanced at her watch.

“Only by three minutes!”

“Still”, Obi Wan shrugged.

She huffed and rolled her eyes, dropping her datapad on the table and sitting down with a leg on the chair, cheek resting against a fist.

“Where’s Commander Ian?”, Cody asked.

“Still recovering”, Luna replied, bringing up the notes function in her device.

“It’s important that he is in this debrief.”

“It’s important that he _knows_ the conclusion of this debrief, not the three hours of discussion that this is going to take us...”

“With all due respect, General”, Cody pressed carefully. “It is a Commander’s duty to attend to these meetings. I have gone to these kind of reunions being right out of triage with still shrapnel in my guts, and I—”

He would have went on, but Dani was staring at him with wide eyes and a grave expression so intense that the Commander was rendered mute. Slowly, she turned her head to Kenobi.

“You have had him go the meetings LIKE THAT?!”, she screeched.

“Please, don’t raise your voice—”

“DON’T TELL ME TO SHUT UP!!!”

The shout echoed through the corridors of _The Negotiator_ , the troops subconsciously straightening before realising there was no reason for that.

“AND ANSWER MY QUESTION!”

“Yes, he has been to meetings while injured—Let me finish: yeah, Cody here has been to meetings while still bleeding, fact that doesn’t sit well with me either—”

That seemed like the right thing to say, since Dani relaxed a bit and sat down.

“—and he is a grown ass man and I can’t stop him from doing his work. Yes, I have tried to send him to forced leave. Yes, I enlist troopers to keep him from working. But I can’t run the 212th without him.”

Cody has been looking between the Generals like a child watching his parents argue. Dani had her lips pressed and was frowning, the burst of indignation suddenly having nowhere to go.

“Is that true?”, she asked to Cody.

“Yessir”, he nodded dutifully.

She looked at him like he was the first human she ever saw and couldn’t figure out why was he a furless mammal.

“...Why?”, she asked slowly, cluelessness evident.

Cody blinked at the question, and was already taking in a gulp of air to explain her that it was worthy if it helped the Republic, that he was loyal and wanted nothing more than to win the war, but General Luna spoke again, shaking her head.

“Anyways. The take away of this is that we’re not calling Ian over.”

Obi Wan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Luna...”, the Jedi sighed, already reaching for his comm.

Her hand disappeared inside of one of her pockets and she slammed a device on the table, turning it on as Kenobi activated the Commanding channel.

An unholy amount of static was all it came from it.

“You carry a jamming device with you?!”

“You don’t?”, she asked smugly.

“Turn it off”, he grumbled.

Before Cody could get a hold of it, Dani snatched it back and made a show of storing it in the pocket right over her butt, closing the zipper.

“If any of you touches my ass, I’m writing you up for indecency and inappropriate behaviour”, she informed them, arms crossed in front of her chest.

Obi Wan pressed a fist to his mouth, narrowing his eyes at her.

Cody had startled at the threat, and was probably trying to recall something to counterattack as the Generals glared at each other.

“I said no”, she said calmly before anything could escalate. “I’m Ian’s direct superior, he is recovering from a lightsaber injury and our CMO told him to take it easy for three days more, so I’m not telling him to come over and sit on these metal plates welded together that we call chairs. If you have any complaint, you can address it directly to me.”

“I want to address a complain”, Obi Wan rose a hand, emanating sass.

“Your bitching is duly noted.”

That said, she retrieved the jamming device, turned it off and left it on the table.

“Now. Shall we begin?”

 

“Nearly threw hands with a 13 years old...”, Dani muttered, passing the datapad full of notes from the meeting to Ian.

“Thanks. Wait, with who? Cody?”

“Yeah”, she replied, walking around the office and digging around some file folders.

“Why?”

“Dude’s a masochist! Said he goes to meetings with internal bleeding as if that was the most normal thing to say in the world!”, she threw her hands on the air in exasperation.

“Yes, I have heard he is quite... _intense_ in his loyalty to the Republic.”

“Intense. Intense? Listen, I respect the fuck out of him, but goddammit: he’s a workaholic! Even more: a workaholic that can get himself killed!”

“I don’t think he is a good candidate to know about our affairs, if that’s what you are pushing around for... He would be in on sneaking the injured out of the GAR, but those who are still able to fight...”

“No, no, I know, I know... Do you think he will accuse me of treason if I suggest he takes a brake?”

“Possible”, Ian shrugged, scrolling down the notes Dani had taken and marked as important points. “What are you looking for?”

“The blueprints of the harnesses of the Spider Squad and the guides I wrote with them. Cody and Obi Sass Kenobi want to take a look at them and see if they can get the Senate to pay for them.”

“Spider Squad? Wasn’t it Spider Team?”

“Yeah, but Spider Squad sounds better. SS. The guys agree”, she shrugged.

“Ah. And _Obi Sass_? Are you ever gonna call him that to his face?”

“If the situation arises...”, she shrugged yet again, straightening when she found what she was looking for. “You doing okay? Need me to bring you something?”

“I’m fine, Dani”, he sighed. Yeah, she had been buggering him about his health and well-being to the point of being a bit annoying, but there was still appreciation in his voice. “Go get done with the meeting.”

“We’ll be docked together for, like, two days more!”, she whined. “Why don’t we have a breaks policy?”

“You say that as if this was worse than out training on Kamino.”

“Yeah, you have a point. You sure you don’t want anything?”

“Dani...”

“Just kidding, just kidding...”

 

“Where’s Kenobi?”

“Got a call from General Skywalker and ran off.”

“Ah, classic”, she smirked, setting the folder on the table. “Sorry, I have the habit of writing important stuff on flimsi.”

Luckily, all was written in Basic and with the Basic alphabet.

“You could always scan it.”

“I prefer not having it on data. Too easy to hack.”

“Hacking is not _that_ easy”, he said, reading over the notes.

“I met Fixer, from Delta Squad. He made it look easy.”

“We’re talking about a Commando, sir. Of course he made it look easy.”

“Leave me and my paranoia alone.”

Surprisingly, she managed to steal a snort from the Marshal Commander. She blinked in shock, smiling at his reaction. Cody seemed to sense that he had fallen in some sort of trap.

“I bet you have picked up on Obi Wan’s sass.”

“Perhaps. What are the ropes made of?”

“Carbon fibre.”

“Why not use durasteel alloy?”

“Because it’s more expensive and not as flexible. And since the fibre is strong enough to bear several people’s weights, I think it compensates well enough to choose it over the durasteel.”

“Hm. Good point.”

Getting the indirect, she decided not to push him and stayed silent while the Commander looked over the blueprints.

“...And you commissioned this?”, he asked quietly after a while.

“Yeah”, she replied, distracted with her nails.

“Why?”

Dani turned her head to see that he was staring at her. She rose an eyebrow.

“Why did you commission special harnesses? We already have built-in hooks in our blasters.”

“And those are shit”, she said bluntly. Cody gave her a mildly reproaching look. “Sorry. It’s true, though. You loose your grip: you die. Foolish. Why lose lives in that way when you can just...? Make things safer?”, she gestured, and blinked at Cody.

He blinked back.

“I... have never thought of it that way.”

“Yeah, war is more expensive than what I had thought too.”

“Detachable”, he observed.

“Yeah. Nobody wants to die in a tangle of their own equipment.”

“You thought about everything.”

“Despite what most people think, I do have an approximate idea of what I am doing.”

Cody let out a huffed laugh. Dani smiled again, but did not push.

_So, subtle humour, hm? Is this going to be our thing, uncle Cody?_

“Do you have any more blueprints like these? Other commissions? Since we are presenting it to the Senate, we might as well bring everything we can.”

“Well, I have the gliding suits from that time. Those require some training to use but it can be taught when the troops are already deployed, as long as you have safety measures. Don’t forget to present our test reports too. They won’t have the _untested devices_ argument to use against you. I’ll take a look, see if I have more stuff l that I don’t remember now.”

“Thank you, General. It means a lot”, he nodded respectfully, rewarding her with a rare, sincere smile.

“Anytime, Cody. Anytime.”

 

“General Luna!”

Somebody called in the mess hall where Dani was half sprawled over a table, semi passed out. She jerked awake, eyes scanning for the one calling her and totally missing the point.

“Ah, uh, sorry about that”, a clone with quite a moustache apologized with a grimace, a bald clone and some other ones close behind him. “I don’t know if you remember me, I, uh, I’m—”

“Boil”, she nodded “And... Waxer?”

“See? Told you she would remember!”, Boil said to his brother.

“Sorry, sir. Made a bit of a bet. Didn’t think you would remember us after getting slashed by Grievous”, the other apologised sheepishly as they sat down around her.

“Oh, yeah. I don’t recommend you the ‘lightsaber abrasion’ experience”, she snickered, resting her head on a hand. “How have you been? Running in front of more enemy Generals?”

“Luckily not”, Waxer replied, sharing a look with his brother. “Ah, these are Crys, Wooly and Helix”, he introduced them.

“Hi, how’s it going, I’m Dani nice to meet you”, she rushed a bit, shaking their hands, “Helix, long time no see.”

“How’s the abrasion doing?”, he asked politely.

“Horribly: it disappeared”, she snorted, only to laugh dryly at her own joke and banging her forehead against the table.

“Uh... how are you doing over there...?”, Boil asked carefully.

“I’m doing great!”, she replied, abruptly straightening up. “Did you know that I have a kid now? His name’s Aleluia. I didn’t see motherhood coming but that’s okay, I got this. I got this”, Luna repeated, gaze lost somewhere on the table.

“I have a kid too”, Waxer blurted out, and Dani focused her eyes fast enough to see Boil elbowing him.

The other three were looking between each other, visibly unnerved.

“You do?!”

“Yeah”, he smiled shyly. “Her name is Numa.”

“Waxer!”

“What? She is chill about it!”

“Tell me allllllllll about her!”, Dani continued, as if she were drunk on something. Love, perhaps. Or hype on having more cousins.

“She is from Ryloth. She is about this tall and has green skin.”

“Aw, Aleluia is a bit taller but I’m sure they would get along. What’s her favourite food? And colour? Where is she?”

Waxer made a face, and did not answer.

Dani tilted her head in confusion, looking at the other clones in search for answers.

“We... couldn’t take her with us”, Boil explained slowly. “We only got to see her once.”

“Oh”, she blinked in surprise. “I’m sorry. Is she with relatives?”

“I guess”, Waxer shrugged.

“...What if I adopted her too”, she mumbled mostly to herself, pulling out her phone.

“What?”, the clones asked in unison.

“Am I gonna adopt another child?”, she paused for a moment, staring at the middle distance. “Yes. Yes I am.”

“Wait wait wait you can’t do that!”, Wooley stood up, reaching for her but stopping short.

“Why not?”, she asked, pausing on her movements.

“She’s with relatives!”

“They can come with her.”

“Ryloth is blocked, civilian vessels can’t leave atmosphere”, Crys piped up.

“Guys, I know what I’m doing, okay? Boil, Waxer. Are you okay with this? Do I try to get safe passage for Numa and her supposed family to Coruscant?”, she asked, blinking at them.

They looked at each other, naturally dubious.

“Parenting is so hard, right?”

“Do it”, Boil said before Waxer could open his mouth.

She looked at the later for confirmation. He nodded.

Dani hit the call button and left to phone on speaker on the table.

“This is Plo Koon.”

“ _Koh-to-yah_!”

“ _Koh-to-yah_ , Dani.”

“Do you remember what we pulled off with Ale?”

“Indeed.”

“Could we do that with another child but skipping the blood transfusion part?”

“It depends. I will need some tests if I am to sneak out another cadet...”

“No, no, we’re not talking about cadets. A twil’lek girl, named Numa, green skin, pretty short. She’s on Ryloth.”

“Hm. It will be possible, then. Where on Ryloth?”

Dani looked up at the couple.

“Uh, she was on Nabat when we met her”, Waxer stuttered.

“The Wolfpack is being sent there to deliver relief supplies. I will look for her.”

“And her family, if she has any, please.”

“I will do my best.”

“Thank you. Send me a text if something comes up.”

“Likewise.”

They hung up and Dani slipped her phone back to her pocket.

The clones were blinking, not really believing what they had heard. The General was sporting a smug face.

“I will keep you updated on how that goes.”

“But—What—How—?”, Boil stuttered.

“The general idea is that Numa is, at least, going to be somewhere safe until the war ends and you can come back and visit her or take over her raising. It will be great she will play with Aleluia and Yaddle can keep and eye on them while we are on double dates or something! Us queer parents have to support each other”, she rambled, nodding along.

It took her a long second to realise that they were staring at her.

“Sorry, I tend to get carried away when planning. Did I go to far? You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to...”

“How did you know we are together?”, Waxer hissed, leaning forward in distress.

“It’s a secret?”, she hissed back, genuinely surprised.

Crys and Wooley face-palmed, while Helix snorted hysterically.

“I told you someone would notice...”, the medic mumbled.

The troopers were looking at each other, tension escalating—

“Hey, hey, hey”, Dani called softly, raising her hands in surrender. “It’s okay, I’m sorry I brought it up, I won’t be telling anyone, promise! One of the 0th’s mottos is _snitches get stitches_ , and that goes for me too.”

The hot feeling that had been surrounding them because of the anxiousness stabilised.

“I went too fast, didn’t I?”, Luna grimaced. “Sorry. I got too excited and I made you uncomfortable. I’m really sorry...”

“You just... You just arranged sanctuary for Numa”, Waxer said slowly. “Figured out that Boil and I love each other and promised not to tell anyone. And you... apologize?”

“I can be VERY awkward and I might be very very very tired after a three hour long meeting with Cody”, she nodded slowly, gaze fixed on the table. “I am being weird? I’m too weird—AH!”

She startled when suddenly there was a strong grip on her hand.

“Thank you”, Waxer breathed, so heartfelt that it stole Dani’s breath away.

“Thank you”, Boil repeated, gripping her other hand.

She just blinked for a long moment, drunk with their gratitude.

“...Anytime”, she managed to say, shaking her head a bit in an attempt to focus as their hands retreated. “...What are you guys doing on _The Unruly_ , anyways?”

The clones shared a look.

“Uh, sir... This is _The Negotiator..._ ”, Wooley said slowly.

“Is it?”, she asked to no one in particular, eyes going wide as she looked around.

Yep: too much orange, lack of black.

Dani punched a button on her wristcomm.

“Where are you?”, a voice demanded.

“Laa’ka, I’m so sorry, I passed out in _The Negotiator_ ’s mess hall not _The Unruly_ ’s—”

Her snickering deteriorated into a giggle and then a high pitched laughter as she buried her face into her hands. Through the comm., they could hear Laa’ka snorting loudly. The 212th troopers snorted too, trying to lean away from the microphone so they wouldn’t be heard.

“Do you need pick up?”, the ARC trooper asked when he had calmed down marginally.

“Nah, nah, I’m fine, see you at the Greenhouse in two hours?”

“Sure.”

“Sorry I left you hanging.”

“You better get me a pack of sodas to make up for it.”

“Sure will”, she smiled. “See you.”

“See you.”

“I’m a disaster...”, she huffed with a smile.

“You are not worse than Commander Cody”, Helix piped up. “I think it’s his fourth day pulling an all-nighter... I’m starting to consider dropping sleeping pills in his caff...”

“His WHAT?!”, Dani screeched, eyes wide.

Helix panicked, realising he had just suggested that he was about to drug his commanding officer in front of a General—

“Four days without sleeping? He seemed fine!”

“Yeah, he is a great actor”, Crys mused, sipping at his drink.

“Why is he even awake. Like. There are no pressing matters currently!”

“We all have tried telling him to take it easy, but...”, Waxer shrugged.

“What a workaholic. This idiot is going to burn himself out”, Luna shook her head and stood up.

“Where are you going?”, Boil called after her as she powerwalked away.

“To give him a disappointed look!”

The group of clones watched her go.

“I had the feeling she was the most functional General in the GAR, but she is a disaster too...”, Wooley mused.

“Just like in the simulations”, Boil deadpanned.

The group roared with laughter.

 

Luna found Cody in the same room they had been holed up for hours, still studying the blueprints.

“General”, he acknowledged her. “Do you have more prints?”

“No...”, she said carefully. “I’ll get to it in the morning.”

“Ah”, he mouthed, only letting on a tiny bit of confusion. “Can I help you with something else?”

“Can _I_ help you with something?”, she asked back, sitting down opposite of him.

“Uh, no, sir. Why?”

“Because it’s past dinner time and you are still working. Do you need a hand?”

There was something firm as a rock behind the worry in her eyes. Cody saw it coming.

“Sir—”

“I have been told you haven’t slept in some days. Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes, sir, I—”

“Cody”, her voice was a gentle warning as her eyelids dropped a tad, unimpressed. But the hardness melted away as she repeated her question: “Are you okay?”

And his eyes must be playing tricks on him, because suddenly there was a little girl asking him that devastating question: looking at him with big eyes, her hands intertwined in a gesture too adult for her body.

And he didn’t found the strength in him to lie to that child.

The headache he had been supressing with sheer will spread painfully behind his eyes, his sense of equilibrium rebelling against him as the world tilted abruptly—

Strong arms caught him gently, rushing to support his neck and head and guide him to the floor.

“Cody?”, a voice called softly.

Then there was a warm feeling, similar to the one he felt when Obi Wan tried to put him to sleep with the Force and he jerked, not liking the idea. But the heat reached his head and he didn’t faint. The pain dulled to a bearable ache.

“Better?”, the voice asked.

He tried to open his eyes, but the light was too much.

“Your brain is a mess...”, she huffed, and Cody remembered the person with him was Dani. “That’s why it’s important to sleep, you know?”

Arms slipped under his shoulders and knees, and before the Commander could figure out what was happening he was lifted into the air. He yelped a bit in surprise, blushing as he admitted to himself that he hadn’t thought her capable of carrying someone of his size on her own. But despite what he had thought, the arms holding him didn’t tremble and the steps didn’t falter as Dani moved him around the room. He was set down on something soft, but they hadn’t crossed any doors, so he guessed it was the couch in the corner of the room. He sighed as the strain was taken off his back and legs.

Gentle fingers brushed his frown and hairline, nearing his scar. They seemed to pause there for a moment, maybe itching to touch it, but finally deciding against it, an unspoken question hanging in the air.

“Why do you do this to yourself?”, she sighed instead. “You know meds can’t substitute sleep, right? That the brain re-establishes neuronal connections so we can function through the next day?”

“Have work to do...”, he breathed.

“So do I, but I’m leaving it for tomorrow because I’m tired and I won’t be able to address it at my best if I haven’t rested properly.”

His brow furrowed further.

“Are you gonna tell me you never thought of it that way?”

His head lolled a bit, not enough for Dani to be sure that he had shaken his head or something.

“Do you want me to call a medic?”, she squeezed his shoulder a bit.

“No”, this time the shake of his head was obvious.

“Okay. Try to sleep it off. I’ll stay for a while”, she added after checking her watch.

Cody fell asleep to the warmth still seeping into his head and the feeling of a hand holding his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boil and Waxer are 100% okay with just being Numa's older nerras but they also be okay with being her gay dads you can't change my mind  
> Also I am aware Cody is perfectly capable of taking care of himself, I just wanted to be soft with him


	30. Kamino V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Dani met some of the men under her command during Phase III of her training

“I see you made it here.”

Dani gave Alpha-17 a wide grin from behind her helmet as she stood in line with the other candidates to ARC trooper. The clone hadn’t seen her since she arrived on the planet, and because of that he could see the differences clearly: the way she stood, like a soldier, not a tourist; and despite the armour covering every inch of her, he could tell there were strong muscles underneath. She was taller too. Who stood in front of him wasn’t a girl, but a woman.

He had had his doubts when he first saw her, but now he knew: she had chances.

“Let’s see if you can make it past me.”

“Sir, yes sir!”

 

ARC training resulted to be... Kind of disappointing. It was like Independent Thought 101. And she had been taught that when she was a kid. Luna understood the need to teach that to the clones, since their education was based on ‘follow orders follow orders follow orders’ and to be an ARC meant be independent and creative. It did prove a bit challenging having to act on her own after months of training with a squad, but she adjusted. The physical preparation felt like hell, like always, but she remembered how she managed to save Slick thanks to spending months at the gym and bore the exercises, telling herself than once it was over she would be able to save more people. Dani didn’t talk much during training, didn’t even take off her helmet. In part, because she was still processing that Unruly wasn’t there anymore, in part because her schedule was shit.

ARF training centred a bit more about scouting, and that caught her attention. Some things overlapped with ARC training, so she got extra practise and those ended up being easier for her. She was barely decent at driving the vehicles.

Which took her to Piloting. She did fine with the theory, but she found herself sick with anxiety, waiting in line to enter the simulator for the first time. She must have been literally emanating nervousness, because the trooper in front of her turned around.

“You...okay?”, he asked carefully.

“Nervous”, she replied, her voice shakier than what she had expected.

“It’s okay, it’s just a simulation. No flying today.”

“I know, I know, but I don’t have a good record driving... anything.”

“Being afraid to fly is the worst thing you could be thinking about when sitting behind the controls”, the candidate behind her piped up. “Try to relax and do your best: it’s better than worrying about the worst.”

“...Yeah”, she nodded, feeling a little better. “Thanks.”

“Sure, kid”, the one behind her nodded.

“I can’t wait to get to the real thing”, the one in front said, tapping his foot against the floor. “I want to be given something fast!”

“Faster than sound”, the other nodded.

“I see you guys are the ‘pedal to the metal’ type”, Dani chuckled.

There was an intense silence as the clones stared at each other.

“Wha—”

“Dibs on Pedal!”, yelled the one in front.

“Dibs on Metal!”·, the one behind said at the same time.

“Huh?”, Luna blinked in confusion.

“Thanks! I’ve been waiting for the right name for _years_ and that one sounds just fine!” Pedal smiled.

“Ah. Uhm... You’re welcome.”

“And you are Luna, right? The reg-born”, Metal went on.

“You can call me Dani”, she shrugged.

“I’ve heard about you! Thought you wouldn’t end up in our group, though”, Pedal commented.

“Guess I’m the main gossip around here, hm?”

“Yeah... you kind of are”, Metal scratched at the back of his head awkwardly.

“Is it true that you beat up somebodies’ ass while having internal bleeding?”, Pedal went on.

“Well, yes, but it wasn’t exactly—”

“That’s. So. Awesome.”

“I’ve heard that you can talk back to the instructors and get away with it.”

“That I can do”, she nodded, looking at the floor.

“Oh, talk back to our supervisor!”, Metal said, bouncing a bit on his feet.

“No, mate!”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not an asshole and I don’t pick up fights with people that has done nothing wrong—”

“Move it, meatbags! We don’t have all day!”, said instructor snarled at the next clone in line.

Metal and Pedal stared expectantly at her.

“Are you going to...?”

He was smiling mischievously, but Pedal saw her eyes and a chill like he had never felt before went down his spine, stealing his voice.

“Never rush vengeance”, she mused.

Then Dani blinked and it was as if the danger in her had faded away, though she still glanced cautiously at the instructor. Time went on, Pedal entered the simulator and exited, clapping her shoulder.

“It’s going to be okay”, he said to her, rushing to go sit with the others under the supervisor’s glare.

Metal pushed her back lightly with the tips of his fingers in silent encouragement.

 

“And the _worst_ simulation has been performed by—”

The asshole looked pretty content with himself. He had harassed several troopers and threatened some of them with kicking them out of pilot training if they scored the lowest.

Joke’s on him.

“—Luna?”, he pronounced slowly.

Dani snorted.

“What?!”, he snapped, staring at her.

“Nothin’, sir”, she replied, still smiling.

“Do you mock me, trooper?”, he walked to her with his chin raised, looking down at her.

“I’m sorry if it seemed like it, sir”, she replied calmly, her voice serene. “I laughed because, as I expected, I scored the lowest. Could you please point out my mistakes so I can work on them?”

That wording was too polite to reply with a scolding, so instead he decided to humour her and humiliate her in front of the class. He cleared his throat and proceeded to read off the list.

“In the ten minutes of the duration of the test, you have: performed two lethal crash landings—”

Luna snorted. The supervisor eyes her, but decided to continue reading.

“—had thirteen close calls of impact against obstacles—”

She giggled.

He was glaring daggers at her, but Dani found it SO amusing...

“—and ran over eighteen obstacles.”

Dani sputtered and cried with laughter, the clones laughing their asses off too.

“Silence!”, he tried to hush them, but he couldn’t raise his voice over their combined glee. “Silence, I say!”

He looked like he was about to spontaneously combust.

The laughter eventually died down.

“You think this is funny?”, he snarled lowly, way too close to her face.

His breath smelled like rot and some kind of addictive low-grade drug that was slowly killing him, no doubt.

“Well, it kind of is, sir. It will be a fun anecdote to tell once I have gotten better at it”, she nodded to herself.

“Maybe you are beyond help”, he straightened up, looking down at her with disdain.

“Maybe the GAR should find itself another pilot trainer then, if you are not good enough to help me improve”, Dani replied casually.

The silence that followed was so outraged that she would have sighed in content.

“...Run me five around the hangar.”

She rose an eyebrow.

“NOW, trooper!”

Luna stood up and held his gaze for three seconds.

“Yes, sir”, she replied with a fake smile.

And ran off.

The instructor watched her go, about to have an aneurism because of bottled up rage. He turned abruptly to the other candidates to pilot.

“What are you looking at?!”, he snapped, pacing briskly in front of them.

They all straightened, but they knew, and HE knew. Nobody that had witnessed that was ever going to fear him.

Because he could be mocked.

When he strolled past them, Pedal leaned towards Metal.

“I don’t know where she is going”, he whispered to his brother. “But wherever that is, _I_ ’m following her.”

 

Dani rushed to first aid classes, breathing hard from the extra strain, and dropped on a free stool, scrambling to take notes. Most of her classmates made annotations on their own datapads, but she liked having it written down. Once she was done with her formation, she would put everything neatly in file folders...

A stray piece of flimsi was thrown over her notebook. Luna flinched away from it and unfolded it suspiciously, half expecting a joke, or a taunt...

It was a poorly drawn dick. Luna rolled her eyes, added scissors threatening the penis and tossed it back. She was hoping that would be the end of it, but another sheet skidded to a halt in front of her. She glanced at the teacher to make sure she wasn’t attracting too much attention before wielding her pen—

...Was that an actual medical fact?

“The teacher said it and I thought it was important”, CT-8888 whispered to her from beside her.

Dani could have cried.

“Thank you!”, she whispered back, and stored the note between the pages of her notebook.

It was... weird and comforting, to be sitting and taking notes again. Reminded her of school. That was the equivalent of a kinda crappy med school, but still, it was better than what most people knew. Or that was what she had been told. 80% of the times the right answer was: apply bacta.

She collected her stuff and bolted for the door, heading for her Force training.

“Hey!”, 8888 called, walking up to her.

“Hey! Uh, thanks for the notes! I appreciate it”, she nodded, not slowing down.

“Don’t mention it”, he waved. “Uh, where are you running to?”

“Training.”

“Ah. I saw your answer to the dick draw. Clever.”

“I would have liked to see their faces”, she smirked.

“You already see them every day.”

Dani snorted, shaking her head at his humour.

“How are you doing with classes?”, he asked suddenly.

“Uh? Fine, I guess. It’s a relief that they don’t have me running around for this too...”

“Yeah, I get that. Nervous about moving to practice?”

“Ah, not really since I’m not scheduled to learn to perform surgeries.”

88 seemed surprised.

“You aren’t?”

“No, they are just gonna teach me to stitch up somebody and then boom, move along, your work here is done”, she gestured widely.

“That doesn’t look like a clever move.”

“Yeah I know but I’m not gonna complain because I have enough on my plate at the moment...”, Dani rambled.

“I have noticed you running around all day, yeah”, he narrowed his eyes at her. “You take deep breaths and take a nap whenever you can, okay kid? Do your best.”

And now it was her turn to narrow her eyes at him because _wait is this guy trying to parent me?_

She opened her mouth, but her thoughts were too scrambled to be voiced, so only a deeply troubled face came out. 88 didn’t get to see it, though, because he had left with a friendly pat on her back.

Dani put down her stuff to a side and walked to Shaak Ti.

“Something troubles you?”, she asked carefully.

“Yep”, she blurted out, staring at the middle distance.

“Would you like to meditate about it?”

“Anything but.”

“Then today we will be deflecting blaster fire.”

 

88 kept popping out of nowhere to give her extra notes and clap her shoulders in encouragement. Dani had managed not to shout at him to _stop doing that you are not my father!!!!_ , because it surely wasn’t a good idea to do that in a hallway on Kamino with emotions running high. But she was starting to flinch every time she had to go to med classes and was abusing of her abilities to avoid him. That said, 88 was VERY persistent.

“You are shaking”, Sal noted when they were having dinner together. “What’s wrong?”

“NOTHING”, she replied, too loud, too fast. She cast her eyes down. “Sorry.”

“I had never see you this jumpy before”, Bee frowned at her. “If something is bothering you, you can tell us.”

_HAHAHAHA no I can’t_

“I guess I’m just nearing a breakdown, that’s all”, Dani said, chasing what was left of her meal with a fork.

The stares they gave her were so intense that she had to meet their eyes.

“But we are built to withstand any stress—“, Zero began, until Sal elbowed him. “Oh, right. Sorry. I forgot”, he apologized awkwardly.

Dani released a shuddering laugh, dropping the fork to hold her head.

“Will you be okay?”, Cabur asked softly.

“Yeah”, she croaked. “I just have to cry it out or something.”

 _And why not do it now?_ , a deep part of her shrugged.

So she stood up.

“Thanks for your concern. See you.”

Dani broke into a run as soon as she left the mess hall. Running was so damn easy now, after months and months of running every day. So she ran and ran through the white corridors, slipping past clones and Kaminoans and droids. Some called out to her in indignation, but nobody chased her. What was the point, after all?

She smacked a control paned and the door to the exterior opened. The monsoon welcomed her with wind and inclement cold rain, but she still walked out to the platforms, breath shaky as she slowly let go. Ducky screamed at the sky, trying to roar over the thunder and holding the gaze to lightning. She screamed for her mother, for the unfairness of it all because she was surrounded by her father’s face but none of them were _they are not my father they are not my father they are not my father—_

And the rain kept falling, unable to cool down the fire burning inside her as the storm kept dancing.

She only stopped because she was out of breath. How much time had passed? No idea, but there were lights still on in the clone facilities, so not too much. What were her options now? To visit the Tongue Batch and hope not to snap at them; to isolate herself; to go to the gym and get somebody to fight her? Dani shook her head and got up, heading for her room, eyes trained on her feet.

She felt lonely. Abandoned. By her father, her mother, Unruly... And now a random guy WITH HER FATHER’S FACE wanted to parent her? How was she supposed to be okay with that?

 _It wasn’t their fault_ , a younger part of herself defended them. And it was right. Didn’t meant she didn’t have the right to feel this way, though. Dani opened the door to her room, ready to drop in bed, though every day she was less exhausted than the one before—

“Dani—”

Every muscle in her body clenched violently, eyes going wide.

“—you have been avoiding me—”

“Get out”, she spat.

“I’m sorry if I have offended you, please tell me what I did wrong so I—“, 88 tried.

But Dani burst into tears, lips trembling as she leaned on the closest wall and slid to the floor. She had thought she had get rid of everything outside. She was wrong.

88 went to kneel beside her, not daring to engage and upset her further.

“Stop it...”, she sobbed, hands covering her eyes. “You are not my dad...”

He might have flinched at that.

“...I know”, he said eventually. “I just... wanted to be nice?”, there was a bit of reproach in the question.

Dani just shook her head, bit her lip and went on sobbing and crying.

And maybe it was because clones weren’t very used to see people crying, but he felt guilty and anxious.

“Sorry”, he ended up blurting out.

She shook her head again. “It’s not your fault”, she croaked before huffing a trembling laugh. “It’s not your fault. I’m an idiot. Sorry...”

88 sighed.

“I don’t really know about parent-child relationships, but I’m going to assume that I overstepped on something.”

Dani kept shaking her head.

“I’m an idiot...”

“Stop saying that. I’m sorry I upset you...”

And now he did dare to slip an arm over her shoulders.

“Tell me if this is too mu—OUFF!”

Luna bolted and clung to him in the tightest hug he had ever received. 88 blinked at the sudden change, but she was still crying and she had initiated contact, so he just rested his hands on her back as she cried her eyes out. He held her for as long as it took for her to calm down.

 

“And the pilot instructor? A bastard. There’s no fucking way he will let me pass the course”, Dani sniffed, gesturing widely with a can of soda.

An hour after her breakdown, they were both sitting on the floor of her room, back to back and with the closest thing to an alcoholic drink Dani had in their hands.

“Can’t believe you dropped that bomb on him”, the smile could be heard in his voice. “You got a pair, kid.”

“Kid? I’m probably older than you...”

“I’m nine.”

“Almost nineteen, mate”, she sang-sung smugly.

“Still. You FEEL younger.”

“Thanks, it’s the lack of military training during my early years.”

“Cheers to that.”

They clanked their cans together and both snorted.

“...You have to pass everything so they let you be a General?”, he asked quietly after a while.

“Yup.”

“Wow. That’s a lot.”

“Yeah: hence the crying and screaming. In part.”

“A pretty proud guy, for what you tell”, 88 hummed.

“Yeah?”

“You actually don’t need to be good at piloting. Just getting his okay.”

Dani turned to him.

“Keep talking.”

 

“And the worst score of the day is—Luna...”

She just bobbed her head instead of laughing, because he sounded SO disappointed.

Dani had, in fact, improved and managed to stop scoring crash lands, but she still ran over and/or collided with a lot of things. Pedal nudged her discreetly, giving her a knowing look. She rose an eyebrow in reply, not really knowing what was that for, but he just seemed more amused.

“I will have some words with you later, trooper”, the instructor grumbled at her.

She held his gaze, only to squirm a bit when she looked away. That conversation as going to determine all of her future. So when the lesson ended, Dani waited in formation until everybody else left the room.

“Follow me”, he said coldly.

She obeyed without a word and followed him to what seemed to be offices.

“Sit down.”

She did so, blinking expectantly.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you are doing”, he snarled.

_Oh shit_

“I KNOW that you are scoring low marks deliberately!”, he slammed his hands down on the table, standing up to loom over her.

_What_

“I have seen your grades in all your other studies, and they are just fine! Not above average, but at least they are not the DISASTER you are performing under MY supervision!”

_Shut up shut up let him rant_

“And for what? Because you got attached to the clones? Is that it?! Is that why you decided to fuck with me?!”, Dani pressed her lips together. “You want to be the spot in my impeccable record, huh? The perfectly capable of passing girl who failed under MY watch?!”, Luna still remained silent, wide eyes staring at him. He leaned even closer to her face. “Well then, know this: you WILL pass my class.”

 

“I didn’t even had to say anything!”, Dani explained, still perplex as she waved yet another can of soda around, sprawled over her chair and facing 88, sitting on her bed with another drink held in his hands. “The guy just talked and talked and talked and basically said he was going to mark me as fit no matter what!”

“So that long ass, super manipulative conversation we planned... Didn’t happen?”, he asked slowly, brows raised.

“At all”, she shook her head.

They could only hold their gazes for barely a second before howling in laughter.

“Thanks for helping me out”, Dani said sheepishly once it died down. “You are a really cool guy. How come you don’t have a name yet?”

“Don’t mention it. And thanks”, he added with a tender smile. “I, uh, haven’t found anything that I like yet. Don’t want to be another ‘Stitch’, you know? Not that there’s anything wrong with that name, it’s just—”

“Common”, she nodded in understanding. “So you are going for originality, then.”

“I guess that would be a start”, he shrugged, taking a sip of the violet soda. “This is disgustingly sweet.”

“And caff is disgustingly bitter.”

“I bet you didn’t speak to your father like that.”

“You are NOT my father.”

“Yeah, that has been cleared up. What are you thinking about?”

“Uh?”

“You are doing that thing with your eyes where they dart everywhere and suddenly stop at an specific point to stare at the void.”

“I’m thinking of names for you.”

“You don’t really need to, kid—”

“Quit that or I will tell everyone you have chosen Old Man.”

“Are you THREATENING me?”, 88 gasped with exaggerated shock.

“Are you gonna let me give it a try or not?”

“Alright, alright”, he huffed. “Show me what you got.”

Dani brought a hand up to cover her mouth as she thought.

“Kit”, she piped up.

88 gave her an unimpressed look.

“Sebastian.”

“Too damn long.”

“Theodore.”

“Now you’re just messing with me...”

“Ass Kicker 3000.”

“I might have taken that if I hadn’t already refused a shorter one for being too long.”

“Alright, alright, I’m gonna get serious and deep now, okay?”

“Yeah, sure...”

“I mean it!”

“I didn’t say otherwise!”, he replied, raising his hands in surrender.

Dani gave him a smirk and submerged back into her thoughts.

“You have a cutting humour”, she said after a while. “And you were nice to me and helped me without asking for anything in return, even when I had snapped at you. In my book, that makes you a cool person. And cool people look even cooler... when they wear Shades”, she ended, her eyes lighting up at the last word.

88’s body actually jerked when he heard it, eyes going wide with shock.

“...Shades”, he said slowly, tasting the word. No, not a word anymore: a name. “My name is Shades.”

“Do you like it?”, Dani blinked, actually surprised that he was considering it.

“I surely haven’t heard before of anyone named like that”, he nodded. “And it’s short enough. Not as cool as Ass Kicker 3000, but it will do.”

That stole a laugh from the young woman. Shades had found out pretty quick that he liked doing that.

“At least we agreed on that. Two guys at pilot training named themselves after a random idiom I said...”

“Metal and Pedal?”

“You know them?”

“And who doesn’t now? The bastards ran all over the city yelling their names!”

“Glad to know I’m brining joy to Kamino”, she snickered.

“You are brining CHAOS to Kamino.”

“It will do”, Dani smirked.

Shades huffed and shook is head. After that, they fell in a comfortable silence as they finished their drinks.

“Do I look like your father?”, he asked jokingly all of a sudden.

“Haha, yeah”, she replied on reflex.

Her gleeful smile fell down as she realised the honesty she had said that with and looked up at Shades, who was staring right back, mouth slightly open as he studied very intensively her traits.

_Ups_

“ _D A N I—_ ”


	31. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> About names

“Dad”, little Dani called from the door to the kitchen.

“Yes, sweetheart?”, Sol replied, glancing at her from where he was chopping vegetables.

She put down her bag on the table and sat down on her chair.

“Is Ducky my name?”

He put down the knife and washed his hands so he could give her all of his attention.

“Well, not exactly. Is more of an affectionate nickname. Why do you ask?”

“All my classmates have a name. I mean, MORE than a name. I know Luna is my name, but it’s mom’s second name, and I thought Ducky was my first name, but they told me that couldn’t be because it’s very silly...”, she mused, fingers playing with the lines in the wood.

Sol sat down opposite to her.

“Do YOU think it’s silly?”

She looked uneasy.

“No, because I thought it was the name mom and you gave me. But you say it’s not a name.”

“It’s not”, he nodded.

“...Why didn’t you give me a name?”, she asked, with so much insecurity in her eyes that Sol’s heart ached.

“Mom and I talked about it, and we decided that we would let you chose it yourself”, he said softly, reaching out to her to stroke her hand.

She clung to his fingers. By the way her eyes darted around, he could tell she wasn’t understanding.

“Ducky”, he called her, and she looked up at him. “We didn’t give you a name because we didn’t love you or didn’t want to keep you.”

She let out a shaky breath as a tear slipped down her cheek, visibly relieved, but she still sobbed. Sol stood up and picked up his daughter to sit her on his lap, letting her clung to him and running a soothing hand up and down her back.

“I wasn’t given a name, either”, he explained. “Nobody cared to. And my brothers didn’t have, either. So we would give names to each other, or choose it ourselves”, Ducky sniffed and looked up at him. “When we DID find a name, though—It was as if something clicked, you know?”, she perked up at his excitement. “When we accepted a name, it was because it was The One”, he smiled widely, eyes lost in nostalgia. “So, when your mom and I talked about what we could call you, we thought: what are the chances that we chose The Right name, from all the possibilities?”

He made a pause in case she wanted to say something, but she just blinked up at him with big eyes.

“And that’s why we didn’t name you. Because one day, you will hear or read a certain word, and it will resonate with you. And you will know: THAT is your name, no matter if it’s very common, or if it’s so rare that people think it’s silly.”

Ducky sniffed again, rubbing a hand against her face, but there were no more tears to dry.

“Okay”, she said quietly before squirming her way out of her father’s lap.

“Where are you going?”

“To search for my name!”, she replied, already running out of the kitchen.

“Kiddo, kiddo, don’t rush that! All will come!”, he called after her with an amused smile, following her. “At the moment, why don’t you help me set the table for when mom arrives from work?”

“Table!”, she hollered, before going strangely silent with a pensive pose. “No, that won’t do...”, she mused to herself.

And Sol could only smile as Ducky picked up objects and said their names out loud, staring at them as if they held the answer she was looking for.

And who knows, maybe one of them did.


	32. The Umbara fiasco

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...and how to patch it up a little bit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been VERY taxing to write. Will have to write domestic fluff to compensate  
> I've been thinking of giving Luna a theme song and I was thinking on something of Marina and the Diamonds? But I don't even know what to choose.  
> Buy The Stars? Breathtaking.  
> Savages? Brutal  
> Homewrecker? Perfection.
> 
> WARNINGS: canon character death, general sadness and lots of crying because Umbara sucks
> 
> Anyways, almost 30 pages long chapter

Ian had been chatting and laughing with the men when Dani called him.

“Ian. I need you here.”

The message had been horribly short, her voice carrying an unnatural amount of neutrality, sounding almost dead, plus a slight shake in her voice towards the end.

“What’s going on?”, Venus had asked as unease spread through the whole room, everybody sensing that something was off.

“I don’t know. But if someone were in danger, she would have said so”, the Commander reasoned after taking a steading breath.

That, at least, seemed to settle them down a bit as he put on his helmet and ran off.

He skidded to a halt in front of the door to her office and slapped the control panel to open the door. He might have hesitated if he knew what was going on, but for all he knew Dani could be bleeding out on the floor.

To his relief: she wasn’t. But that feeling only lasted a fleeting moment. She was sitting on his chair, knees drawn up to her chest and eyes haunted and staring at the void as she chewed at her nails, not even realising that he was there.

“Dani?”, he called, taking a cautious step towards her.

She blinked out of her stupor, tears escaping when doing so.

“What happened?”, Ian asked, walking up to her with the intention of comforting her—

“Sit”, she said instead, voice raspy.

He obeyed as she took a deep breath, rubbing her eyes in an attempt to stop the tears and focus.

“Something has happened on Umbara”, she hiccupped. “Remember how I screamed out during drills? And, like, a bunch of hours later I faded away from everyone?”

Ian nodded and took the datapad she was handing him.

“Waxer and Hardcase are dead”, she whined.

He looked up at her from the reports.

“I’m so sor—”

“It’s worse”, she gulped down, closing her eyes. “Read.”

And he did. Force, he did. The datapad clattered on the desk as he cradled his head between his hands, eyes wide in disbelief, imagining over and over the carnage that had taken place.

“We have to tell the men”, Dani hiccupped. “Before they know of it because of rumours. If you agree”, she added.

He did not reply. Not immediately, at least. Luna didn’t blame him.

“I agree”, he finally said, raising his head. His eyes were red and wet.

So she stood up, and they held each other.

“Ready?”, she asked, voice still a little bit shaky.

“No. But let’s do it”, he sighed, rubbing a hand over his face and standing up.

Dani pressed her wristcomm.

“This is General Luna and Commander Ian: a warning to all units. You have five minutes to get over with what you are doing. Exceptional permission to all non-indispensable personnel to leave their posts and listen to the Umbara reports, which will be shared. I repeat, a report will be shared with all troops. If you are performing a potentially dangerous activity, cease it. It’s—It’s not good news...”

She closed the channel with a shaky sigh, hands trembling.

“This is going to be a hard blow on the morale”, Ian mused.

“I know. But not telling them will be a blow on their trust.”

Ian nodded.

 

The silence after the report was read was devastating. Ian and Dani had had to take turns to read it every time one of them burst into tears or their voices broke. Some people had left the room when they were still speaking, other brothers going after them to check on them or grief together. Some had sat down, head between their hands as they tried to process it all. Dani looked haunted as she cried quietly, as if it had been her fault. Shades and Bubble walked up to the commanders to offer them crates to sit on. Nobody really had the strength to get up and return to their duties.

That said, some of them didn’t really have a choice.

“General”, a naval officer approached her. “You have a call from the Chancellor on the bridge. It’s urgent”, he added hesitantly.

“What’s your name?”, she sighed, looking defeated and exhausted.

“Huh, Course, sir.”

“Course. Thank you”, she nodded, and stood up. “You stay with him?”, she asked to Shades, gesturing to Ian, who looked as lost as she felt. Maybe even more.

“Sure, sir.”

“Thanks. Let’s go.”

She let him guide her to the bridge, walking in gloomy silence. Neither of them attempted conversation. Even the bridge felt sombre when they walked in. Even Kasta had an grimy air around him. He just gestured for her to answer the call.

“This is General Dani Luna”, she announced after clearing her throat.

“General. You are to come back to Coruscant immediately and report back to me. I have a special assignment for the 0th.”

Return? They had been headed to back up a battalion and deliver supplies. In other circumstances, she would have argued. Argued that others needed their help. But Ian had been right, and the morale was incredibly low.

Also the 501st and the 212th were on Coruscant.

“Understood, sir. Admiral”, she called.

“Turn around, gentlemen! We are going to the capital.”

Activity bustled around them as the naval officers made preparations to change course. Without another word, she turned around. She would have to tell Ian about this. Maybe she would even manage to take his mind off this shit—

“Luna”, Kasta called her.

She sighed and turned to him, eyes half lidded, eyes dead.

“I’m sorry.”

And she actually startled at the emotion in his voice.

 

“Get some rest, guys. But please, refrain from drowning in alcohol if you can”, she told her men as they docked, and she departed to meet Palpatine.

The journey had lasted a few days, but last she heard, the other two battalions were still there. She just hoped she could get over with this quickly and go find her friends.

Or those who were still alive.

“Chancellor”, she greeted coldly once she was in front of him.

“General. Take a sit”, he gestured. She complied without a fuss, noticing that Yoda and Windu were in the room too. “I take you have read the Umbara reports.”

“I have”, she nodded, managing not to cry.

“What’s your opinion on Pong Krell?”

_A bastard. Should have been there to murder him personally._

“A man who should have not been a General”, she replied, emotionless.

Sheev just nodded.

“That’s what we were just discussing with Master Windu and Grand Master Yoda”, he gestured to them.

Dani looked at them with a slightly cocked head, silently asking what was all of that about.

“Fell to the Dark Side, Krell did. Notice, we did not”, Yoda lamented.

“We are stretched too thin to keep an eye on our own resources. And even if we did, we think that a Jedi supervising another Jedi would be...”, Mace explained

“Not the most transparent thing to do”, Sheev added with that fake smile of his.

And god, Ducky could have laughed in their faces, because since when had transparency mattered? Not since she had arrived to the galaxy, that’s for sure. So, like the good personal hitman that she was supposed to be, looked the man that ordered her to kill and intimidate people in the eyes and kept her mouth shut.

_When the day comes, we’re going to have so much dirt on you that there’s no way you will walk away from it_ , was her greatest solace.

That said, she took a moment to reflect on their words.

“So you want me to, what? Be the head of Internal Affairs or something?”

“To supervise any irregularities that our Generals or Commanders could be performing, yes”, Windu nodded.

And thanks the mild shock of that, she didn’t snort and brake down in nervous giggles.

“So. The 0th: special manoeuvres battalion AND Internal Affairs”, she said with an arched brow, crossing her arms.

“You are the 0th and nothing else”, the Chancellor said slowly, a slight growl in her voice that made Dani squint at him. “That’s the why of the number, General Luna: you adapt to what is thrown at you and that’s it.”

“Alright then. What am I supposed to do now? I am not formed to carry with that position”, she grumbled.

“Lived in the Temple you have. Our ways you know.”

“That’s still not—”

“You will be supplied with the regulations used by other security corps respecting corruption, of course. We will provide you a Jedi liaison so that together you may adapt the ways you will carry on the supervisions—”

“I want Yaddle.”

“...Yaddle it will be.”

Dani scratched the back of her head.

“When am I supposed to have the Internal Affairs thingy fully operational?”, she sighed, already running mental math.

“Two months”, Windu blurted out.

“TWO MONTHS?!”

“Refrain from raising your voice, please”, Sheev had the cheek to say.

“I hope at the very least not to be sent on campaigns before this deadline!”

“The 0th is still an important asset on the battlefield—”

“Three months if you send me to reinforce other battalions. Five if you send me on campaigns. And why the fuck hadn’t been any kind of military supervising in the GAR before?!”

“...Believe that darkness would be within us, we did not”, Yoda admitted quietly.

Dani just stared at him.

“This war is a fucking joke”, she snarled.

“General Luna, I suggest you watch your language if you don’t want to face consequences!”, the Chancellor threatened her.

She shook her head in disbelief.

“Whatever. I’ll keep you posted on my work. And it will begin to function when it is a flawless system, and ONLY then!”

Ducky glared at them for a long moment, and when they said nothing, she left.

“Was this the right decision?”, Windu mused.

“Agreed to it, the Council did.”

“Luna is... quite a difficult woman, but I agree: she will get the job done quite fine. And, well, if she doesn’t, we can always replace her”, Palpatine shrugged, intertwining his fingers in front of him.

“Everything alright, sir?”, a Coruscant Guard asked, peeking inside.

“Yes, Captain. Just a minor ruckus, that’s all. We know how the youth can be.”

“Yes sir”, he nodded, and returned to his post outside the office.

 

“So now we are Internal Affairs and have about four months to set everything up”, Dani explained to the group, taking a gulp of her soda.

“WHAT?!”, was the general reaction.

“I know: the irony, am I right?”

“How are we supposed to do that?”, Ian sighed, exasperated.

“With a lot of writing regulations and rearranging power structures within the 0th, I guess.”

“So what? We will be babysitting Generals from now on?”, Pedal asked, already having emptied his glass.

“No, we will be watching Generals and giving them hell if they are abusing of their power.”

The hardness in her eyes and the way she had said it foretold anything that was going on in her mind: to stop the likes of Krell, to deliver justice to the clones that where still in the GAR ranks.

“Are you sure we will be able to manage... everything?” Shades asked slowly.

“No”, she huffed, rubbing her eyes before looking at Ian. “We need a TIC. And we can’t afford to be picky right now.”

“We have lists already done: let’s just debate the best candidates and pick one”, Ian nodded.

“Alright. Can you guys tell the others about our new orientation? Don’t let them fret: it mostly only means that we will be doing more paperwork as a whole and ask uncomfortable questions.”

“You got it, chief”, Venus nodded.

“Thanks. I will be going to see if I can get a hold of my contacts in the 501st or the 212th. I will join you at the evening, at most.”

“Yessir!”, they saluted, and scurried off to their duties.

Dani sprung to her feet and hurried out of _The Unruly_ , towards the barracks in the military installations, her Force-sight already expending to take in the whole building.

Honestly, she had no idea what she was doing. What—What was she supposed to say? To do? Would they even want to see her? A Jedi had set them up to kill their own brothers. And she was not a Jedi but she did have a lightsaber and there was no way they wouldn’t made the relation—

“Boil!”, she called out to the other side of the room, halting and pulling herself away from her train of thoughts.

Dani blinked, realising she had tracked him without even thinking. The clones in the room looked between her and Boil with slow gestures, the tension so high that it made the air thick. Nobody seemed in the mood to greet her as a General, but they weren’t being friendly either...

“Dani...”, he said in a whisper before biting his lip and striding towards her.

She took a cautious step forward, now focused solely on him, on his emotions. There was heartbreak and numbing sadness, but no sign of imminent hostility. So she kept walking to meet him halfway, arms open.

Once they embraced each other, most of the tension dissipated.

“I’m so sorry”, she sobbed, not knowing what else to say. “This shit is so UNFAIR and I’m so sorry...!”

Boil clung harder to her, body trembling. They just held each other for a while, non of them willing to let go. Maybe afraid of doing so. Dani waited until both their sobs and whimpers quieted.

“Do you want to speak somewhere more private?”, she mused then.

“Yeah”, he croaked, rubbing his eyes discreetly.

Luna led him to a maintenance room. Once there, she leaned against a wall, arms crossed. Boil did the same at a respectful distance, which was kinda dumb of them, because they had just been hugging and crying in front of a shit-ton of people. Awkwardness settled around them when she realised she had been about to—No, wait, there was no other way of saying it, right? And it was something she had told him—told Boil and Waxer—that she would keep them updated about. Was it a good moment to speak about it? Was it EVER going to be a good moment?

“Numa is on Coruscant”, she finally said in a exhale.

Boil’s head jerked up, a spark flashing deep inside his dulled eyes.

“What?”, he croaked weakly.

“Plo Koon found her. She is at the Temple, with Yaddle. You are free to go see her”, she explained softly.

“I—“, he seemed excited at first, but darkness returned to cloud his eyes and he looked down, as if he couldn’t bear the idea. “Just me...”, she heard him say by sheer luck.

“I can be the one to tell her, if you want. But I think she has to know”, Dani suggested quietly, eyes on the floor. “Numa really loves you two...”

“I didn’t want to take her with us”, he blurted suddenly, and Luna looked up at him with wide eyes. “W-When we met her. Waxer was the one that wanted to take her with us. I wanted to go on with the mission”, his voice trembled and more teas streamed as he confessed to her.

She took it as her cue to go and hug him again.

“But do you love her?”, Dani asked, gently rocking him.

“...Yes”, he admitted after a pregnant pause. “But Waxer—”

“Hey”, she called, backing up a bit to gently hold his head between her hands. “Waxer loved her a lot, I’m sure. But you love her too, Boil. You are enough”, she breathed, pressing their foreheads together. “You deserve her, and she deserves you.”

Boil squeezed her a tad to hard, but she didn’t complain.

“Do you know where the guys of the 501st are?”, Dani asked after a while.

“Not in the barracks”, he sniffed, stepping back and holding a side of his head. Luna nodded at the confirmation of what she already knew. “I think... I think they have the habit of hiding away in hangars and places like that. Where there’s room to hide.”

She nodded slowly in understanding.

“Do you want me to walk you to the Temple?”

“No, you should—You should go check on them. I’ll... I’ll go with Crys or Wooley, if that’s okay...?”

“Sure”, she nodded again. “Once you get there tell the guards that you are scheduled to meet Yaddle. I told her about you.”

“I—Thank you, Dani. Thank you.”

She rested a hand on his shoulder, giving a weak, sad smile.

“I’s wish I could have done more”, she rasped.

 

The familiar Force-signatures were clustered deep inside a labyrinth of supply crates. More than once she found herself in a dead-end in her eagerness to pick the fastest way: straight forward. She was starting to get really frustrated and it hadn’t been even five minutes...!

“Fives!!!!”, she called out. “Kix!!!! Jesse!!!!! You there??!!! It’s Dani!!!! I’m kinda lost here!!!”

“...Dani??!!!!”, a voice echoed soon after.

“Here!!!!”

“Follow my voice!!!!”

“I’m trying!!!!!”

“Not THAT way!!!!”

“Come meet me, damn it!!!”

“Weren’t you, like, the best at finding people???!!!”

“I KNOW where you are, I just can’t find the way to get there!!!”

“Just jump over the crates!!! Can’t you do that???!!!”

“Without knowing what’s on the other side????!!!!!”

“WE are on the other side!!!!!”

“No complains if I land on you, then!!!!!”

“Get over here!!!!”

“Comiiiiiiiiing!!!!!”, she called out before sighing and slumping a bit.

She took a little run before dashing towards the crate in front of her, running up the container and making a final jump into the air, drawing her legs close to her body and looking down to see her landing options. A lamp drew long shadows along the space that the clones were occupying, with smaller crates scattered around, surely used as seats. They were all standing and looking up at her, ready to step away if she was about to fall on them, she guessed.

Her jump had been a bit too strong, finding herself in a collision course with the side of a container. Sticking out a leg, she kicked herself to the opposite wall until reaching the floor.

“I didn’t know I sucked so much at labyrinths...”, she huffed, giving an awkward smile.

Non of the presents replied.

“Huh, sorry, I didn’t meant to disturb, I just... Wanted to check on you...”, she explained, making an effort to meet their eyes and deal with whatever they threw at her.

“Hardcase is dead”, Jesse blurted out, strangely cold.

“...I know”, Dani whined. “I felt him die.”

She had gotten so used to cry that at this point the feeling of tears slipping down her cheeks didn’t bother her at all. She didn’t even sob, just kinda... stared into the void.

“Hey, hey, don’t do that!”, Kix went to shake her. “Don’t shut down!”

“...I don’t”, she protested, frowning at him.

“Yes, you do”, the medic sighed, pulling her to him.

“You shouldn’t be the one worrying about me”, she spoke into his shoulder. “You guys just went through hell.”

“Can’t say no to that...”, Fives tried to joke.

Nobody laughed.

They invited her to sit with a vague gesture. She sat right besides Kix. Jesse was at his other side, with Fives, Rex and a clone that she didn’t know sitting opposite to them.

“Uh, hi. I’m Dani.”

“Tup”, he offered, getting up and spreading his hand for her to take.

“Sorry to meet you like this. Nice hair, by the way”, she commented with a sad smile.

“So. Huh. A Jedi?”, the young clone asked awkwardly.

Everybody flinched.

“No. She isn’t”, Rex said before taking a bottle from the floor and taking a sip. “Are you on duty?”

“No.”

“Good”, he huffed, setting the bottle down. “It’s not an habit, you know.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“But you were worrying”, Fives pointed out.

“Yeah”, she admitted, looking down.

“We’re okay”, Jesse said abruptly. Dani rose an eyebrow at him. “Well, we aren’t! I mean, we will be! It’s just—”

Nobody could find the words for it.

“It’s just so fucked up...!”, Luna whined again.

“And the worst part is that they took Dogma!!”, Fives shouted, standing up and pacing around, fists clenching around his hair.

“Yeah, I read he is supposed to go to trial, but, for what? Krell was a Separatist infiltrate, right? He killed him, that’s it, why are they arresting him instead of giving him a medal?”

“EXACTLY!”, Fives gestured to her. “Somebody KRIFFING understands!”

“I hate to ask you this, but...”, Rex begun, gulping hard.

“Never hate to ask me for help” she sighed, already knowing what he was about to say. “But I can’t think of anything, apart from throwing my opinion around... And High Command leaves me be but I’m not very loved up there...”, she shook her head, tipped downwards in utterly defeat.

“I understand”, Rex sighed.

“I don’t”, Dani mused, eyes lost in the middle distance.

“Don’t do that”, Kix nudged her.

She blinked back into the present, giving a frustrated growl.

“Have you talked to Shades?”, he asked softly.

“What for?”

“To manage your feelings.”

“Did he tell you that?!”

“Yeah. We do chat often, you know? And you haven’t answered my question.”

“I’m on it!”, she assured him, a bit irritated. “It’s just...! I’ll be very busy for some time”, she made a pause to take a steading breath. “I just came from a meeting with the Chancellor. I have been named Head of Internal Affairs of the GAR.”

“WHAT?!”

“Yeah, just what my men said.”

“Does... Does that mean you are ABOVE Generals?!”, Jesse leaned forwards to stare at her with wide eyes.

“It means that once I have adapted and written down the regulations and set up all the logistics and paperwork procedures I will be able to review reports and other stuff and say: you are doing inappropriate things with your power, step down or I’ll arrest you”, she sighed, blinking slowly. Just the thought was tiresome.

“So—You could—“, Kix stuttered.

“I would have had the power to stop Krell, if I had been in this position before”, she nodded slowly. Her hands, clasped in front of her, were trembling slightly.

“Luna”, Fives called, looking at her with soft eyes. “You couldn’t have done anything.”

“I could have killed him”, she snarled, eyes clouded with hate. “General to General. Dogma wouldn’t be in this situation...”

“ _I_ should have been the one to shoot Krell”, Rex snapped. “It was MY duty!”

His fists were balled over his knees, teeth greeted as he tried to control his breathing.

And suddenly Dani was beside him, a comforting hand on his back as she crouched down, looking up at him with big, unjudging eyes.

Maybe that was worse than being blamed.

Dani stood up with a sigh, feeling that she was making things worse.

“I... Guess I’ll go get to work. Got a new fucking department to build...”, she stared at the ground for a moment, not really knowing what to say to bid farewell. ‘Nice to see you’ didn’t feel appropriate. “I—I’m glad you are alive”, she mused awkwardly.

“Thanks. For, uhm, checking on us”, Kix said louder. “We’ll chat soon, alright? Take care.”

“You too”, she nodded.

And disappeared in a jump.

 

Reviewing the lists of candidates was unsettling. All those numbers and nicknames and images of their traits and skills, and she couldn’t bring herself to trust them...

“Come on, Dani, just five candidates. Pick one.”

She didn’t reply.

Ian sighed.

“At least let’s discuss the pros and cons.”

“I don’t trust them.”

“But once we pick a Captain and have him here, maybe you will!”

She just petted Grey, who was laying on her lap. The loth cat had been pretty solicited those last days.

“How are they?”, the Commander finally gave up on work for today.

“Trying to cope with the guilt and fear and loss... I sent Boil to meet Numa. Yaddle sent me a text: they are spending the afternoon with Aleluia and just... taking their mind off things.”

“That’s good. And the 501st guys?”

“In deep shit. Did you know that Dogma, the guy who killed Krell was arrested and currently on trial and they won’t even let them visit him?”, she shook her head in disgust.

“Disappointed, but not surprised”, Ian huffed, taking a sip of his caff.

“Rex even asked me to help him. I couldn’t fucking look him in the eyes when I told him I couldn’t think of anything...”

“Dani”, Ian blurted out suddenly, putting the cup down and looking at her with wide eyes. “We need a TIC.”

“Yeah—”

“To help us run the Internal Affairs Division.”

Her eyes darted quickly to a couple spots before they went wide in realisation.

“Ohmygod. Can we pull this off?”, she asked, voice tight in controlled hope as she stood up and Grey tumbled down her lap with a displeasured meow.

“We may if we start filling paperwork NOW”, Ian emphasized, tapping the desk with a finger.

“You’re a fucking GENIUS! I’m going to call Padmé, ask her if she knows the procedure or possible counterarguments they could use against us—”

“You do that, I’ll get started with requisitions and the basic statement—”

“Will we need Anakin to sign something?”

“I think Rex’s signature would be enough but look into it just in case— Wait what if we need the Chancellor’s?!—”

“I can manage this, I WILL manage this, I’m going to make some calls—”

And in the midst of that frenzy, they set to work.

 

“I’m sorry, General Luna, but Senator Amidala is currently off planet—“, C-3PO’s voice answered her call, and it stole Dani’s breath away. “But she instructed me to direct you to Bail Organa if any issue were to arise!”, he added cheerfully.

“PO, wait...!”

“This is Senator Organa”, said the new voice suddenly.

“Oh, hum, hello...”, she stuttered awkwardly, mind racing.

“This is General Dani Luna, am I right?”, he inquired softly. “Padmé is a good friend of mine and she trusted me with the knowledge of your... enterprise. I take that you are in need of assistance?”

_Uhhhhh_

“I’ll do what is necessary to gain your trust”, he added after a stunned silence.

“No, uh, sorry; it all caught me off guard, but if Amidala trusts you then I trust you too. What’s your knowledge on trials and being an attorney?”

 

“—an’t believe I am doing this...”

“Come on, Sound, I told you you didn’t have to do it...!”

“I know, I know, but what was I supposed to say when you come after years of not seeing you and you are like: Hey, long time no see, do you mind sneaking me in the holding cells, off the record, of course!”

“You were supposed to say yes or no, mate.”

“What if I would have said no?”

“Nothing! Nothing would have happened.”

“...You would have snuck inside on your own, wouldn’t you.”

“You got me there”, she waved a finger at him with a smirk.

“Somebody responsible HAS to keep an eye on you”, the Coruscant Guard sighed dramatically.

“Actually, the point of this is that you act as if you didn’t see me.”

“You know what I mean”, he grumbled, and Dani was already taking in a gulp of air with a playful smile, but Sound spoke again, hushed. “We’re here.”

Her jaw snapped close, eyes hardening as she focused on her task.

“You have seven minutes, then I open the door and you follow the same route we used to avoid the next patrol”, he reminded her of the plan.

“Understood. I owe you”, she smiled gratefully.

“You sure do...”, Sound sighed as he opened the cell and turned around to leave.

She gave a last amused huff before stepping inside the cell.

Wide, distrustful eyes met hers from the father corner of the space.

“Who are you?”, came the wary voice.

Dani could not respond at the moment. She was transfixed: first taking in the facial tattoo, then the young features it partially hid.

_Force, he’s Laa’ka’s age, if not younger_

“Dogma, am I right?”, she asked as friendly as she could manage after the shock.

He narrowed her eyes at her. Yeah: silly question.

“I know that you just asked for my name, but I have an important question for you and I don’t want my name to affect your answer, if that’s possible”, she explained with gentle tone.

“I have already been interrogated”, he replied coldly.

“And I have already read the report”, Dani nodded. “And I would like a tiny clarification.”

“On what?”, Dogma asked with what was, perhaps, disdain; as he curled further on himself on the bed.

“I need you to answer quickly because I want you to say what you want to say, not what you think I want to hear, okay? So don’t think too much about it.”

“Just get on with it!”, he snarled.

“Okay”, Dani sighed, taking a deep breath. “In the report says that, once you killed Krell, you said: ‘I had to. He betrayed us’”, she made a small pause, but he did not correct her. She had better get it right: she had checked the quote six times before coming. “My question is: who is ‘us’? The Republic? Your brothers? Or someone else?”

A beat.

“My brothers”, he replied in a whisper, eyes darting to his feet and around the room with insecurity, emotions a mess—

“Dogma”, she called him, and his head jerked up. “Thank you. I hope to be able to help you soon”, she nodded softly.

“Heh”, his body jerked, giving a sad smile. “There’s no helping me.”

He was just lowering his eyes, but her figure caught his attention again. It started with a sort of shiver all along her body that build into tension from toes to head, and what had been a relaxed posture turned into an imposing stance. Maybe he had fucked up, maybe that was the boss of the bosses, maybe she had come to make him confess and take delight in his weakness—

“We shall see”, she smiled briefly.

And it was a challenge. A challenge to his self-damnation.

With a last reassuring smile, she slipped away.

 

Ian skidded to a halt in front of Rex’s bunk room, knocking loudly on the door.

“There’s a buzz, no need to knock the door down!”, the Captain grumbled as he opened it remotely.

Ian paid no mind to the comment, slipping inside before it opened completely and going to stand by the bed, where Rex was sitting up. His annoyed expression morphed to surprise and a tiny bit of shock before he could react and try to stand to salute.

“Commander, I—“

“Remember that Dani told you that she couldn’t think of anything to help Dogma? Turns out she’s a bit obtuse sometimes and now we are trying something but I need you to sign his transfer under our command”, he explained in a rushed go, holding out the datapad to him.

He snatched it from his hands and started reading it. Ian turned and paced around, if to not loose the momentum that had been carrying him around for hours now or because he couldn’t physically stop, he didn’t know.

“Is this going to work?”, Rex wheezed, teeth clenched tightly, as if trying to hold down hope.

“I don’t know, but it’s our best bet. Our arguments are solid and Dani is willing to put up a fight for them”, he halted for a moment to nod in determination.

They stared at each other’s eyes for an eternal second. Rex was searching something: maybe doubt, or maybe a reason to truly trust. Whatever he did or did not find seemed enough.

The Captain scrolled through the document and made a sharp gesture on the screen.

“Done”, he said, giving it back to him.

Just in case, Ian checked that everything was in order. For the fifth time.

“Okay, cool, thanks—“, he ranted as he started walking out and towards his next destination.

“Commander!”, he called him, and he flinched, startled out of his stupor, but still turned around to blink at him.

“Thank you”, he breathed.

And the tiny spark of hope he had ignited made him look even more defeated and tired.

“Thank me only if it goes well.”

And maybe, just maybe, he had said that more coldly than what he intended.

 

Sneaking into offices was absurdly easy when your speciality was cloaking. From. Everything. Senses AND sensors. Every now and then the Separatists tried a new kind of device: to detect masses, to detect catabolism, transformation of oxygen to carbon dioxide... It took her two days at most to adapt to those and render them useless too.

So despite the anxiousness and lack of time, Dani took her time in basically disappearing. She was going to sneak in the Chancellor’s office, and that was supposed to be a hard thing to do when she wasn’t invited.

Cameras were not a problem. Heat sensors were not a problem (she had spent weeks with Shaak Ti training to mainly fool those). She was over sonars too. And standard HUDs of clone troopers didn’t have anything good enough to give her away. So Guards weren’t a problem either.

There was quite a flow of people going in and out of the office that day, lucky Ducky.

She snuck in with a Senator and stepped to the side to study the situation.

“Senator Kakenyiall, what a pleasure to see you”, Palpatine greeted them, and Dani could have rolled her eyes into oblivion. “To what do I owe this visit? Is there something you would like to discuss?”

“Chancellor”, the furry alien reverenced. “I do not bring any more work to your desk. I merely wanted to make a couple suggestions about the banquet that will take place in a couple of days.”

“Ah, I see! Tell me, then—”

Dani bared her teeth at them, even when they couldn’t see her. Un-fucking-believable! In the middle of a war and the politicians were feasting while entire planets starved! She was fuming as she bit her lip to not snap right there.

“—you only need to feel the petition and I will sign it”, Sheev smiled as he gestured to a pile of datapads.

And that was her cue.

Carefully, she walked around the droid staff and behind the desk, right by the stack of ‘pads, and read over the one on top. It was indeed a long, detailed list of items and instructions of how to use or consume or cook them. It was as formal as a grocery list could get. Dani took out her datapad and scrolled up and down the document she needed signed. Maybe she could change the format so it looked like another list. Surely Palpatine wasn’t going to read ALL the petitions, right?

The conversation among politicians died down and the Senator left. Ducky stood there and watched as the Chancellor took the first datapad and read it over. He hummed and signed it. She watched him read some more requests as she edited her own. It was clear that he was loosing interest in knowing what he was signing for and was just indulging whatever the Senators and other assistants asked for. But who knows, at any moment he could decide that he wanted to read THAT datapad in particular. And if it was hers, it would get dumped. Probably.

She hadn’t thought of asking politely, Dani realised suddenly. But then she went: bah, because when had she ever trusted this asshole? The answer was: never. So she took a deep breath, and slowly put her datapad on the pile.

Ducky held her breath as the old man took it and read the title: _The importance of having the right cutlery for every dish: an essay with metaphors_

Sheev stared at it, gave a long, suffering sigh and scrolled to the bottom to sign.

She pumped up her fists and bit her lip harder to not let out a _YEEEEESSSSSSSSS_ , turning around and pressing a fist against her mouth to hide the wide smile. After that indulgent outburst of accomplishment, she turned back quickly to keep her eyes on the datapad, now stocked in another pile.

Time to wrap this up.

She moved her presence to the Chancellor’s left, behind a door to what she assumed was a bathroom or living room. Sheev tensed abruptly, staring at the door. For a second Dani thought he was just going to call the guards outside and hide in the opposite direction, but he stood up suddenly and strode towards it with a speed she had not thought him capable of. Luna only stared in surprise for a couple seconds before hurrying to retrieve her datapad as he opened the door and looked inside with abrupt movements. Dani stepped back from his desk, watching him warily, and gave a tiny nudge to the Guards outside.

The door opened with a swish and Sheev startled back into composure.

“Is everything alright, Chancellor?”, a Guard barrelled inside and asked. A Captain, Dani noticed. His presence was a bit familiar... Wait, was he Sound’s partner?

Not a good moment to stop and say hi.

Dani stepped carefully towards him as Palpatine dismissed him, and she slipped out of the office and down the hallway, double checking the signature.

Yep: they had everything they needed now.

 

“—and with that said, I declare the Clone Sergeant guilty of—”

“OBJECTION!”

A pity doors couldn’t be kicked in in this galaxy.

Bail Organa’s voice boomed inside the room before it went deadly silent. Luna walked right beside him, dressed with her deep blue suit to the Senator’s suggestion. She searched Dogma with her eyes. He was staring at her with wide eyes, shock barely overpowering the fear he must had been feeling. She gave him a reassuring nod before looking forwards.

“What is the meaning of this?”, the judge snarled.

“New orders”, Dani answered, loud and clear for all the room to hear. Her pace wasn’t rushed as she walked up to them with datapad in hand, handing it over before clasping her hands behind her back. “Sergeant Dogma is to be transferred to the 0th and promoted to Captain.”

The judge snatched it off her hands, reading furiously for a handful of seconds before dropping it on their desk.

“This cannot be! The trial has already taken place—”

“Then it is rendered null”, Bail spoke up.

“This man has murdered a General of the GAR—”

“A General that turned out to be a Separatist spy, who could have continued filtering critical information to the enemy if he hadn’t been stopped by this brave soldier”, Organa went on.

“And who says he won’t kill his next General too, in the hypothetical case I let him go?”

“Nobody”, Dani answered cheerfully. “That’s why I need him to be my Captain: he has lived first hand the corruption of a superior officer and ACTED on it. I fully expect him to shoot me or any other General or commanding officer that is abusing their power.”

She glanced at him with a playful smile, his eyes still wide as he watched the events unfold.

“Regardless, you would need the sign of someone of the GAR’s High Command to—”

“If you had read through our report, you would have seen that we have the signature of the Chancellor himself”, Bail placated.

The judge went deadly silent and retrieved the datapad, scrolling down.

“I—I—“, they stuttered.

“If you don’t have any more doubts, we’ll be leaving now.”

“If you don’t mind”, Dani gestured to the Corsucant Guards watching Dogma to his cuffs.

“Ah. Hum. Sir?”, one of them asked, looking at the judge.

“They have the signature”, they grumbled, nodding to them. Dani concealed a relieved sigh as the restrains flickered open and Dogma rubbed at his wrists. “I WILL talk to the Chancellor about this”, they warned.

“Very well”, Luna snapped, taking her new Captain by his arm. “Let’s go”, she urged him, pulling him towards the exit. Before that, she looked at Organa with grateful eyes. “Thank you”, she mouthed.

He gave her an appreciative nod and a brief smile.

The doors to the trial room closed behind them; Ian and Raven waiting for them outside.

“It’s done, let’s go”, the General nodded to them, and they were off, letting the ARF trooper guide them. “Are you okay?”, she asked Dogma as they turned a corner, Ian watching their back.

“I—sir, I—I don’t know what to—“, he stuttered.

Say? Expect? Do? He seemed too shaken to get words out.

“Hey, it’s okay. I have arranged something for you and then we can leave and get you some proper food and rest, okay? You’re going to be fine”, Dani reassured him, hand drifting from his arm to his own hand in a friendly grip.

They exited the building through an alley and kept going through backstreets. Despite her efforts to calm him down, Dogma’s breathing was picking up again in anxiety. Luna wasn’t surprised: it probably looked like they were taking him to a desolated place to execute him or something.

“It’s okay, we’re going to meet with your brothers from the 501st before we go. They want to see you.”

“Do they?”, he asked shakily, gulping down. “I—I thought—”

“They asked me to help you”, she blinked at him, all honesty.

“We’re here”, Raven called from the front, knocking a code on a durasteel door before Ian stepped in to drag it manually to a side.

Dani let go of Dogma’s hand.

“You can go alone or accompanied by my men, if you want. I’ll be waiting here.”

The soon-to-be Captain held her gaze, hesitating—

“Dogma?”, a voice called from inside, and he turned abruptly.

“Tup?”, he dared to ask in a whisper, stepping inside.

Before he was able to take two steps deeper into the building, arms embraced him and pulled him against a body in a crushing hug.

Ian closed the door a bit as the 0thers settled to wait.

“You’re okay, _vod_ , you’re okay...”, Tup chanted, holding him as if he never meant to let go ever again.

Kix rested a hand on the back of Dogma’s neck while simultaneously taking his pulse, making sure he was alive and realising a shaky sigh of relief. Jesse added himself to the hug with Fives following suit. Rex put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed reassuringly.

“It’s good to see you, kid”, the 501st Captain breathed out.

“I thought—I thought nobody would come. I thought I was going to die”, Dogma hiccupped, tears falling.

At that, all of them joined the hug, tightening it.

“You made it out, it’s okay, it’s over”, Kix soothed him.

The young clone was shivering violently; all the stress and tension finally released.

“Let’s get you a sit”, the medic suggested out loud, and everybody broke off so Dogma could be lowered to the floor before converging on him again.

“W-What happens now?”, he asked shakily, trying to take in deep breaths.

“Now you go with the 0th and become Captain. Dani and Ian will take good care of you”, Rex explained, squeezing his hand.

“I’m not ready for that”, he whined anxiously. “I-I have only had one assignment before and I screwed it up, I screwed up—”

“Dogma, brother, take deep breaths”, Tup encouraged him with worried eyes.

“It’s going to be okay, _vod_ ”, Fives chimed in. “It’s just a transfer. And a promotion! Damn, next time we see each other you might even be able to boss me around!”

This time the joke did the trick. Soft smiles, huffed laughter, and it managed to calm Dogma down a bit.

“What... What if I’m not good enough?”

“Dani would never—”

“You are enough”, Kix cut Jesse. “And if you feel you can’t... Even then, you will be alright.”

They startled a bit when they heard loud knocking on the door.

“Hate to rush the moment, but we should put some distance between us and the planet surface before the Chancellor hears of this!”, Raven called out.

The group turned their heads to Dogma.

“Are you ready?”

“No”, he shook his head. “But I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”, he tried to smile.

His brothers helped him to his feet. He was still trembling, but Kix and himself were positive he wasn’t going to collapse suddenly. They walked him to the door, and Dogma had never felt as safe in all his life as in that moment, surrounded by his brothers: the same that had reached out to get him help, even when he had been willing to see them dead for disobeying orders.

“We part ways here”, Dani said. “Pedal is waiting for us a couple of levels over.

“We’re going back to the barracks”, Rex nodded, confirming the last stage of the plan. “Take care of him”, he added, resting a hand on Dogma’s shoulder.

“Will do, _vod_ ”, Ian reassured him. “Let’s move.”

“See you ‘round”, Ducky waved, following her Commander towards the darkness of the backstreets.

“Luna!”, the Captain called out suddenly.

She startled and turned around. The others had already turned and were almost gone, but he had stayed in place.

“Thank you. Both of you”, he said wholeheartedly, gesturing to where Ian and Raven were doing small talk with their newest addition.

She looked over her shoulder to Kix, who had also turned around.

He gave her a tiny nod.

“You got it, uncle Rex”, she smiled and held his gaze.

Before turning around and disappearing in the shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dani to Bail before entering the trial room: listen it's MANDATORY that you yell OBJECTION do you hear me? You MUST do it or the plan won't work
> 
> A minute of silence for Thread, who died so I could save Dogma


	33. Rounds on The Unruly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some interactions between clones without Dani present (or mostly) because she is not the center of the galaxy, and Dani-Dogma and Ian-Dogma bonding time because they have to work closely
> 
> Yes, I have adopted Dogma. Yes, I'm going to make him as happy as I am able

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GREAT NEWS EVERYBODY! I have decided to dial down on angst... for the moment. I think I am keeping enough canon sadness in general, no need to add more to the fray

“The blood thingy isn’t working”, Shades reported. “No, not even the quarter of litre one”, he went on before Dani could protest.

Her frown deepened.

“It worked with Aleluia”, she stated dumbly.

“And it did work with other people. But it seems to be totally random. Laa’ka? Cured of the accelerated aging with 10mL. Match? Not cured with 50mL. Ian? Not cured with 200mL. Apple? Cured with 100mL. Me? Not cured with the 250mL one”, he listed, shrugging sadly.

Dani’s eyes darted around, mind racing to find a plan, a solution, other options, whatever...!

“I’m sorry”, she whispered shakily.

“At least we know there’s something that can be done about it”, Shades sighed, rubbing his eyes. “And it’s something that is in your blood. We just... Don’t have it quite pinpointed yet. We’ll keep working on it.”

“Maybe it’s the proportion. Maybe it’s the age”, Dani mused, eyes lost on the middle distance.

“Don’t worry about that now. You have enough on your plate as it is. I’ll test for those and report back to you.”

“Okay”, she blinked out of her stupor. “Okay.”

“Hello?”, a voice called from the entrance of the medbay.

The CMO stood up to check on the newcomer, and Dani followed him out of the office.

“Shades—Oh, General—”

“Hi, Ratchet!”, she waved.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“I’m already leaving”, she waved off. “Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that. See you later.”

Shades waited for the door the close behind her.

“How can I help you?”

“I, uhm, have a consultation”, the mechanic said a bit awkwardly.

“Do you want to take a sit?”, he asked, gesturing to his office.

“Ah, hum, yes please...”

“Alright.”

The medic led him to the place where he had already been sitting for hours.

“Tell me”, he nudged the mechanic.

Who seemed strangely nervous.

“I, uh...”

“Is it PTSD? We are pretty well stocked at the moment, I can spare some pills for you and run you through the lists of routines—”

“It’s not that”, Ratchet interrupted him. “At least I don’t think so.”

“And what do you think it is?

“I don’t know, it’s like—Like a stomach ache, but it’s more heat than pain, you know? And I got palpitations and I’m overall distracted afterwards...”

“I see”, Shades hummed, raising an eyebrow. “Do that happen after you see a specific person?”

Ratchet looked shocked at his insinuation before his eyes went wider with realisation.

“Brother, unless you are peeing blood; I diagnose you with gay.”

Somewhere on the ship, Dani laughed without apparent reason.

“Ah—I—“, Ratchet stuttered.

“Can I know who is the lucky one?”, Shades smirked. “Doctor-patient confidentiality, of course”, he added, putting his hands in the air to declare himself unarmed.

“It’s Pedal”, the mechanic sighed, leaning forwards to hide his face between his hands.

“So our dear Prime Pilot, huh?”, he asked smugly, leaning back on his sit.

“He’s just so funny and determined and just... Enjoying life as he can, you know?”

“Aha...”, the CMO nodded along, shifting a bit to rummage around the drawers beside his desk.

“And every time he comes ask me to take a look at his ship I’m at a loss of words and when he compliments me I feel like floating—”

Shades tossed a couple condoms at him.

“Oh, no. No, no no no no no, I don’t even know if he likes me!”, he shook his head fervently.

“Listen, I can’t say anything because of doctor-patient confidentiality, but...”, he left in the air, giving a knowing look.

“...But?”, Ratchet tried to press.

“I can’t, I can’t say anything!”, he made a show of pressing his lips together and averting his gaze to scroll through a datapad, shaking his head.

“...Are you for real, Shades?”

“I would NEVER joke about patient-doctor confidentiality!”, he gasped with false offense. “Now go and have a drink with him. He owes me either 10 credits or 12 cans of soda.”

 

“Okay, how about this: you have twenty healthy men and a dozen of injured, plus two TX-130 Saber-class fighter tanks. Your scouts have spotted enemies on the north and west flank and the evacuation ETA is of twenty minutes. What would you do?”, Ian presented the situation to Dogma and gave him a moment to think about it.

“The regulations—”

“The regulations are going to help you to do the paperwork, Dogma, but not in the field”, Ian said patiently. “What do you do in that situation?”

The young clone flinched a bit, eyes darting as he tried to calm down his unease, finally releasing a sigh.

“The mission is important”, he tried.

“Almost half of your force is down. Do you press on?”

“...No?”

“This isn’t a test, Dogma. I really want to know what you would do so I can understand you and work with you better.”

“...I set up defences for the injured”, he tried again, looking up at the Commander for any sign of disappointment or disagreement. He found none. “Leave a tank with them and... four sentinels. Then press on with the others and try to complete the mission, monitoring the others in case they are attacked.”

Ian nodded.

“That’s all?”

“Uhm, yes, sir.”

“I like the idea of leaving a tank to protect the injured. Have you considered that if you split up the enemy may cut you out and surround you?”

Dogma startled at the realisation.

“Uh, no, sir. Sorry, sir”, he said hurriedly.

“Keep that in mind. Sometimes you can’t have it all. Sometimes splitting up is necessary, and sometimes it goes smoothly, but other times it’s a death sentence.”

“...So I took the wrong decision, sir?”, Dogma asked meekly.

“There’s no such thing as ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ decisions, _vod_ ”, Ian sighed, taking a sip of caff and taking notes on the novice responses. “Every call we make has its ups and downs. Whatever we do, people will die... So we can only do our best.”

“What if my best isn’t enough?”, he asked quietly, not quite looking at him.

“Sometimes my best isn’t enough. Damn: sometimes Dani’s best isn’t enough! She’s never gonna ask you to be perfect; you know that, right? Neither will I. We just ask you to give it a try, so we can figure out together how you can help us best. If it’s by leading in the fronts? Great, go with it. If it’s by doing mostly office work? That’s still helping. And helping A LOT.”

“I fucked up on Umbara”, Dogma blurted out, eyes lost in memories of darkness. “I fucked up, I fucked up, I—”

“Hey, hey”, Ian called soothingly, standing up and walking around the desk to grip at Dogma’s shoulder. “That wasn’t your fault. It was Krell’s fault, you hear me? That bastard manipulated you, and Rex, and everybody. You didn’t screw up: you did your best under stress. You hear me? Nobody here is going to give you the bad eye for what you did.”

The Captain closed his eyes, releasing a shaky sigh.

“Yes, sir”, he said slowly.

“How about we take a brake, hm? Have you seen the Greenhouse yet? Or met Grey?”, Ian asked cheerfully, patting the other’s shoulder.

“I have met Grey”, Dogma smiled briefly. “And Commander, I really, really appreciate what it did for me and I understand the reason of having the loth cat on-board, but... Isn’t it against... hum... regulations?”, the last word was the tiniest sound Ian had heard in years. Perhaps even fainter than when Dani had told him their kinship.

“Are you scared of saying that word, _vod_?, he asked carefully, leaning against the table.

Dogma tensed up, not knowing what would be worse: to look at him or to NOT look at him.

“You don’t have to be”, the Commander sighed, scratching his beard. “You have all the right to speak up your mind.”

“...Back at the 501st— No: back at Kamino, my brothers thought I was too... stern. I thought that would change once I got deployed, but... And I don’t—I don’t want it to be the same here! I don’t want to...”

“Be alone”, Ian completed.

Dogma fell silent, gaze on the floor.

“Come here”, Ian said suddenly, pulling him up. The Captain took a sharp breath, abruptly pulled to his feet. But before his thoughts could degrade to the worst possible outcome, he was being hugged. “You’re not going to be alone, kid. No matter that you are the most uptight of us or a grumpy bastard.”

“I... I can change, I can—“, the younger hiccupped.

“Hey, none of that”, Ian frowned, puling away to look at him in the eyes. “Here we welcome change and improvement, of course we do, but you don’t HAVE to change, okay? You have to stay true to yourself, because in the end that’s all we have.”

The Commander stepped back, letting go of him. Dogma’s eyes still darted around a couple of times before he nodded slowly.

“I... will think about it, sir.”

“Good”, he smiled, slinging an arm on his shoulders. “Now, let’s teach you some alien botany.”

 

“Alright, shinnies! Form up!”, Feather hollered to the newly arrived troops.

The twenty troopers that had just stepped out of the transport scrambled into formation.

“My name is Feather, I am the Aerial Operations Specialist and I will be showing you around today. I don’t know if any of you intended to enter the 0th, but if any of you did: congrats on winning the lottery, I guess. You have already seen the hangar: looks like all hangars do, so get your things and let’s move on.”

He clapped his hands and turned to the exit. What was he supposed to show again? The mess hall, the main training room and gym, the armoury, the lounge rooms, the barracks... That was it, pretty much. He was almost sure he wasn’t supposed to go: _and here is where we grow illegal food! And HERE is where we keep the people who is marked as KIA or MIA!_ He shook his head with a quiet sigh. What a mess.

The veteran turned, hearing a familiar but out of place sound.

“No need to march, guys...” he called to them.

The shinnies gave each other weird looks. Feather knew even through the helmets. That was pretty much everybody’s reaction when it was Dani who walked the new additions around _The Unruly_ , and the tradition still stood.

“—and lastly, the barracks. Pick one of the empty bunks: if you lick it it’s officially yours—”

He had to catch himself from tripping over Laa’ka.

“AUCH! You okay, man?”

“Why the _kriff_ are you lying on the floor?!”

“We’re repainting Laa’ka’s kama”, Dani replied from the other sided of the unfolded cloth, also laying on the floor with her head supported on a hand, dipping a paint brush in white paint to draw random speckles on the black cloth, mimicking a night sky. “I’m telling you: if we used a toothbrush we could fold the fibres and let go and it would look more realistic.”

“It doesn’t convince me. And whose toothbrush are we going to use, huh? Mine not, that I tell you!”, retorted the ARC.

“You guys are on the way”, Feather grumbled.

“Step around, mate. It’s not as if we are taking up all the space”, Laa’ka shrugged, painting some stars himself.

“I got twenty guys more with me and I’m going to encourage them to walk over your skirt.”

“Don’t you—”

“Don’t do that”, Dani frowned, mildly upset with the situation. “Let’s put this aside and let them pass. Are those the newbies?”, she asked when she saw somebody lean over the edge of the door. “Hi! Come in! We have black and white paint in here! Feel free to paint your armour if you like”, she waved them over.

“General, sir!”, the one that had been peeking straightened suddenly, sparing a glance at her ass before tensing even more. She could feel his squad doing the same.

“At ease, at ease. This is your turf, not mine”, Luna grinned, helping Laa’ka move his kama out of the way.

“I... thought we had to earn our right to paint our armours, uhm, sir”, one spoke up as they trickled inside.

“Respect will be given unless proven undeserved, kid. You don’t have to prove anything” Feather snorted.

“Exactly”, Dani nodded, standing up to stretch. “Nice to meet y’all, I’m your boss. You can call me Dani when on downtime. Hope you have a nice stay”, she smiled before turning back to the ARC. “I think it’s looking quite well. What do you say?”

“Let’s draw more stars.”

“Okay”, she sighed, starting to sit down.

“Sir”, Venus piped up suddenly, making her way among the shinnies that were still coming in. “I would like to speak to you, if you have a moment.”

And it was a polite request, but there was a tightness in her voice that made Dani recall about the times her mother would call her over to tell her about something she did wrong.

“Sure”, she replied out of parent-pleasing instinct.

 

She followed the clone to an empty room, feeling stupid all the way for feeling like a little girl that was going to be scolded. It was stupid and she was getting grumpy for no reason and that was even stupider. She tried to meditate the emotion away, but Venus was irradiating displeasure and it was driving her CRAZY!

“Why are you mad at me?”, she asked once the door closed behind them, not able to stand it anymore.

The woman took some more steps into the room, sliding her hand over her face before turning around and facing her General.

“Because...! Because I can’t believe you chose a total stranger before ME to be Captain!”, she shouted.

Dani flinched back in shock.

“And a guy named DOGMA, Dani, DOGMA! What do you think he is going to do when he finds out about our stuff, huh? He is going to out us!”

“You don’t know that!”, she protested.

“You saved ONE person, as what: a favour? And you made him commanding officer just because without considering that he could compromise EVERYTHING!”

“Stop yelling at me!”, Dani screeched, shaking with stress.

Venus’ jaw closed abruptly and she stepped back, as if now she realised she had raised her voice. Dani looked aside, panting as she tried to calm herself down.

“...Sorry I yelled”, the clone said eventually.

Luna shook her head.

“First of all: we NEED Dogma’s help to run Internal Affairs. That totally justifies his promotion to my eyes AND Ian’s. Understood?”, she growled.

“Yes, sir”, Venus mused, bowing her head a little, a strand of hair slipping from behind her ears to hang in front of her face.

“Second: Dogma is not going to be aware of our other... activities. Not yet, not unless we know for sure that he is more loyal to his brothers than to the Republic.”

“But... But I thought our Captain had to know about everything to take over if you or the Commander are down...”

“Change of plans”, Luna sighed. “And splitting of responsibilities. We want YOU to be in charge of The Underbelly’s operations.”

Venus was rendered mute, eyes wide as she stared at her General before slapping her own face and hiding at the best of her abilities.

“Oh. Oh, Force”, she whined. “I _kriffed_ up. I’m so sorry Dani, I... I shouldn’t have snapped at you, I should have asked what was your plan, Force...!”

Dani sighed, fidgeting a bit where she stood.

“I understand everything has been very... abrupt, and we didn’t give detailed explanations to all troops, but... We don’t have to, Venus. Do you understand?”

“So you’ll start hiding things from your men, now?”, she asked bitterly after a second.

“That’s not what I said. You want a reasoning? We chose Dogma because he knows all about the regulations and has suffered corruption first-hand. That’s it. We don’t make an official communicate because if we have to reason all our calls we are never going to get anything done. That doesn’t mean you can’t ask for clarifications.”

“Understood”, Venus nodded quietly.

“You haven’t told me if you accept the post.”

“I do, sir. It will be my honour”, the clone nodded again, this time fervently.

“I’m glad”, Dani smiled with a sigh of relief. “I’ll get you the pertinent datapads and a copy of our contacts. Can I ask you a favour, though?”

“Of course, sir! Anything.”

“Could you please don’t antagonize Dogma? I get that he needs to be monitored, but please. Be patient with him and help him feel comfortable, okay?”

“Sure, Dani. I, uhm, I’m sorry I reacted that way.”

“Understandable. Inform the men of the situation if you think they are uneasy, would you?”

“Of course, sir! You can count on me.”

“I know”, Ducky smiled.

 

“—o, we won’t be taking the Gamma Nebula path, CT-7981, for the last time!—”

“Why are you yelling?! Literally everybody can hear you with an indoors voice, Kasta!!!”, Dani hollered as she entered the bridge. “Hey Course, how’s it going mate?”, she added cheerfully.

“Luna”, the Admiral mused. “What brings you to the bridge?”

“Doing rounds. Why were you yelling now?”, she asked with the tone of somebody who wants to hear the latest gossip, sparing a glance at Course, who he had been yelling.

“Course here keeps insisting on ‘alternative routes’ to our destinations”, Kasta grumbled.

“Sir, those would be faster and less crowded than the main roads that we are currently using—”

“Those also are littered with asteroid fields and deep space creatures critters that, believe me, you do NOT want to deal with!”

“—those would cut the time that takes us to systems where relieve supplies are critical in more than half the time it gets us to get there by conventional pathways!—”

“I am NOT risking our lives to get to a place faster when we can get there perfectly safe!”

Course looked at her with desperation, asking for her help.

“I have to agree with Kasta on this”, she shrugged. “If there’s ever a time critical situation, we can debate and try one of those. But unless strictly necessary, I rather avoid unnecessary risks.”

“Finally a voice of reason...” Kasta grumbled

Dani gave him a shit-eating grin.

“So you admit that—”

“No, no, forget it; thank you for doing the rounds, everything is fine here, good day!”, the Admiral ranted as he walked away.

Ducky watched him go with a satisfied grin.

“Is he bothering you a lot?”, she asked Course, her smile falling.

“Not more than usual”, he grumbled, squinting at his retreating form.

“He has a point, you know. About safety above speed. We can’t help anyone if we are dead.”

“And we can’t help anyone if they are ALREADY dead when we get there”, he sighed sadly, not quite meeting her eyes. “I’ll get back to my post, sir—”

“You have a point with that”, she piped up, scratching under her chin. He jerked to attention, blinking in surprise. “Would you mind tracing the routes you mentioned with their ups and downs and send those to me? That way if we ever use them I’ll know what we are doing, and maybe I can sweet-talk Kasta into giving it a try.”

“Really?”

“Can’t promise anything, but at least I want to know all of our resources”, she shrugged.

“Sure, sir! You’ll have it before night cycle, sir!”, he saluted, and bolted to sit at his station.

“Cool”, she smiled warmly.

 

She didn’t usually check around to know where everybody was. Ducky did have a compulsory tendency to locate everybody around her to make sure they were still there, but she made a conscious effort to stop it. Because everybody deserved privacy. Because it was non of her business who hanged out with who and why. So that night, when everybody was having dinner together and being specially loud and she did a compulsory swipe and noticed a presence breaking off, only to discover it was Dogma, she hesitated.

“You okay?”, Bubble asked, noticing that she had paused with her fork mid-air.

It was stupid. He could be going to the toilet. He could just not be the type that likes loud places (she herself didn’t like them much, but she wasn’t going to tell her troops to quiet down their happiness). What was she going to say then, huh? _Oh, Dogma, I’m so sorry: I was keeping track of you via Force sorcery and I saw you leaving, so I thought you were depressed. Ah, you were just relieving yourself; forget about it then!_

“Yeah...”, she mused in reply.

“Yeah, sure. You are not even listening anymore, are you?”, he went on, and surely, Luna didn’t react to his voice, eyes glassed. Bubble elbowed Raven. “Hey, who do you think she is keeping track of?”

The ARF trooper looked at his General to confirm that yeah: she was doing the Force-sight thingy, and looked around him.

“Not you, not me, not Ian, not Venus, not Match and not Laa’ka, that’s for sure.”

“Should I shake her out of it? Her dinner is going to be cold.”

“You said that as if protein paste could get even worse”, Raven grumbled. “At least when we are deployed I can hunt something and eat real meat...”

“Yeah, keep rubbing it in—”

He was going to pick a minor fight with his brother, but Dani stood up abruptly.

“I... have to check on something”, she said before leaving.

“...Do you think somebody is doing something stupid?”

“Trying to eat a blaster? I don’t think so. There’s been stress but not THAT much”, Bubble reasoned. “Plus: if someone was doing that she would have asked us to go with her to restrain them.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess you are right.”

 

The loneliness was soul-crushing.

It wasn’t even the kind of loneliness that Dani had felt when her mother died, it was... It was worse. What she had felt was because somebody who loved her and she loved back was gone. Gone forever. But the sadness that now guided her steps and made her cry was of somebody who didn’t feel loved. Who felt like they weren’t going to be loved, ever.

And she just wanted to run and hug Dogma and tell him that he was loved, that she didn’t know shit about him and she already loved him like a brother, but the most rational part of her brain was shaking her and yelling _THAT’S NOT A GOOD IDEA PARTNERRRRRRRR_

So she halted a few meters away from the door to one of the smallest lounge rooms and worked on calming herself down. When her tears had dried and she was sure that her eyes weren’t red anymore, she released a deep breath and walked to the door.

It swished open quietly, but Dogma still startled. He was sitting on a pillow on the floor, back against a chair as he faced the large window and the space beyond.

“Sir! I—”

“Mind if I join you?”, she asked quietly.

Her voice still carried enough sadness that it lowered the Captain’s defences a bit.

“Sure, sir”, he replied, not moving from his spot.

Ducky retrieved a pillow of her own and dragged another chair over so she could lean on something too.

“You can call me Dani if you want”, she said, settling down to stare into space.

Dogma stared at her, expecting her to explain the reason why she was there. But she just sighed and blinked slowly at the stars.

“Is... everything alright?”, he asked eventually.

She lowered her gaze, considering her answer.

“I’m worried because you are worried about not fitting in”, she turned her head to look at him, all honesty.

That seemed to catch him by surprise.

“...I assure you that won’t affect my performance, sir. Commander Ian has been teaching me—”

“This isn’t about performance. This isn’t about work. It’s about you feeling like you belong. About your well-being”, she said softly.

Dogma blinked at her.

“I don’t think that’s going to be possible...”

“I’m obviously not going to force you to socialize. I know that’s even worse...”

“...You _know_?”

“Yeah. I was the weird kid back at home. It was very hard for me to begin interactions, so my parents tried to help me make friends, but the other kids had it in for me.”

The tension on Dogma’s shoulders eased a bit.

“...What did you do?”

“Not much”, she shrugged. “My dad was with me almost all the time, so I didn’t feel alone. Only that... that hostility that people seem to irradiate when people don’t want you there, you know?”

“I know”, he nodded quietly.

“And it’s very shitty and I am sorry that you have to know how that feels.”

“Heh. Right back at you”, he snorted, settling to watch the stars again. “I don’t even believe that someone is ever gonna like me. They say I’m too... uptight.”

“Yeah, I had a stick up my ass too when I was a kid.”

“Did you?”, he asked with genuine surprise, raising an eyebrow.

“I did when I was in school. I haven’t always been high-key fuck the law. I was serious and a snitch.”

“What changed?”

“I grew up a bit, and realized I just wanted to please the teachers to receive praise.”

“That seems like a logic reason to do things.”

“It’s what kept me from socializing. Putting the rules above everything else. Being the ‘perfect’ child. The one that didn’t speak up. The one who always apologized for everything, even when it wasn’t my fault. This is the part where I would offer a cigarette and we would smoke together; but I have never smoked and I didn’t bring any with me.”

“What’s a ‘cigarette’?”

“An addictive drug that rots your lungs.”

“...Sounds like an awful way to die.”

“I bet it is.”

“Why would you offer me those?”

“It’s addictive because it has nicotine. It calms people down. I mentioned it because of that. Not because I want you to rot”, she clarified, suddenly aware of how her words could be understood.

“Ah.”

They watched the universe for a while.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Are you better now? Now that you changed?”

Dani took a deep breath and released it.

“I am better in general. But I don’t know if I could call it a change. It feels more like a realisation. I realised all those rules I followed were keeping me of a freedom of some sorts. And once I knew, I just... let go. That doesn’t mean now I’m hot shit: I can be awkward as hell, you are a witness of that”, she added, stealing a chuckle from him. “What I mean is... You don’t have to change if you are happy like that, Dogma. You can find your place here: whatever you decide, whatever happens. I can’t speak for the whole 0th, but I can assure you this: Ian and I aren’t going to ditch you. Never ever.”

They stared at each other eyes for a moment. Dogma was the first to look away.

“Thank you, Dani”, he said in a whisper.

“Anytime, partner.”

 

“You have a call from the Chancellor”, Kasta informed her dryly.

“Wow, it took him three days. I’m impressed.”

“Just answer already.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever”, she waved him off, walking to the long-range communicator.

Behind her carefree façade, she was a ball of anxiousness. She had tried to think how to defend herself from illegally getting Palpatine’s signature, but none of the arguments she had come up with convinced her. Would he sue her? Court-martial her? If he did, she was fucked. REALLY fucked. Damn, Venus was right: she had risked everything for one man—

“Ah, General Luna!”, Sheev greeted with a... smile?

“Chancellor”, she decided to just nod in greeting and let him do the talk.

“You look well! How’s your new Captain integrating? Dogma, wasn’t it?”

_Here we go_

“He is doing well. We have already started to write the baseline protocol with his help. We’ll be calling in the Jedi liaison once we have the skeleton of it.”

“I see”, he nodded, with that too practiced smile. “Let’s just address the _bantha_ in the room, shall we, General?”

She nodded, steeling herself.

“You got my firm without my permission.”

“You did sign it willingly.”

“ _The importance of having the right cutlery for every dish: an essay with metaphors_. I didn’t know I was accepting to pardon a criminal and make him Captain of the secret division of the GAR.”

“Well, if you had kept reading you would have known.”

“DON’T PATRONIZE ME, GENERAL!”

Dani pressed her lips, managing not to flinch too much.

“I could take you to court for this! For entering my office without permission! For forging documents!”

She licked her lips, but did not try to defend herself.

“But I will let it slide”, he added, more calmly. “Because of our... unique relationship. I do owe you quite a few favours”, he chuckled briefly. Luna’s eyes narrowed. He was referring to her killing his rivals, the bastard. “If you had asked me and explained me, I would have signed that document. No need for metaphors!”, he laughed again. “Are we not friends, General?”

_No_

“I’m sorry, Chancellor”, she sighed instead. “You are right. I do not know what I was thinking when I could just ask you. I apologise. I guess my spy side got the best of me.”

“Ah, yes: you young people, always up to new challenges”, Palpatine closed his eyes and nodded. Then, let out a sigh. “I respect you, General Luna. I really do. You are a powerful and focused woman... and I think it’s in our bests interests to maintain a, at least, cordial relationship: you don’t ask, and I don’t ask; am I right?”, he chuckled. “Just ask me next time you need a special favour.”

“I will, Sheev. Thank you for understanding. I assure you the Internal Affairs division will be smooth and effective.”

“Just like everything you do, General”, he added with a creepy smirk, and hung up.

_So he’s keeping that as blackmail, hm?_


	34. There's No Death, Only The Shore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dead are busy too. Kinda. They just have a bit of drama

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some short chapters because not all can be 20-30 pages long

“Okay then, I’m leaving.”

“See you soon, Miss Luna!”

“Travel safe!”

“Pffff. What’s the worst that could happen? That I die again?”, she huffed dismissively.

But the congregation of clones that were leaning on the fence stayed right where they were with smirks and quiet laughs, making sure she _did_ leave.

“Okay, okay, I’m going!”, the woman grumbled, turning around and walking down the path. It seemed like she was finally on her way, but she turned again to look over her shoulder.

“Just get it over with already! You just said it: what’s the worst that could happen?!”, Shmi called out.

“Okay, okay!”, Lian called back, muttering more things that the others could not hear.

Begrudgingly, she walked away from her own house, currently at the care of an alien woman and several thousands of her brothers-in-law. Sol had told her he was a clone and he had about 200.000 brothers plus the ones that were on their way, but GEEZ. She was guiltily relieved that she didn’t had to provide for them all because they were... you know. Dead.

It had been disturbing at first. Very, very disturbing. They were never really tired or hungry or thirsty or horny, but they still did all of that. Just to pass the time. Not having any needs is very boring, and Shmi and Lian reached the conclusion that it would do some good to dedicate some time to self-care instead of being always watching the living. The house made itself infinite for them, but still allowed them to find whoever they were looking for almost immediately. Same with the island, and the sea, and the continent up north. A distant memory popped up in her mind: of Ducky playing Minecraft and exploring a never-ending land just to teleport back at her base by entering a command. Lian captured the memory and treasured it, a fond smile drawing itself on her expression as she walked to the shore and the boat waiting for her.

As she padded, the evocation stopped being enough to fend off her worries, and she released a long sigh. After all, Lian was on her way to see a person she had angrily banned from entering her house in such a fit of (perhaps irrational, in retrospect) rage that she had evoked a monsoon.

Just thinking about it was embarrassing.

The boat bumped into shore, startling the woman out of her mind, and she checked over her shoulder. Yep: that was her destination. She dragged the boat further into the sand and picked up a modest backpack. Why did she do that when she really didn’t need anything or could just materialize it out of nowhere; she didn’t know. Old habits die hard but help keep you sane, she guessed.

That island was way smaller than the one where she had once lived and now... died? Was dead on? She would have to write a dictionary for the dead or something. Anyways: it was small, but not tiny. Lian climbed up a young path, fingertips caressing the leaves of the vegetation and the occasional flower. She reached the top of a hill and looked down at the other side, where the path lead to a small shack facing the vast ocean.

That was her last chance to turn back.

Her feet moved before her brain decided: forwards. The others would bugger her forever if she turned away now.

Lian saw a figure sitting by the shore, not watching the gorgeous ocean; but a living child.

“Jango”, she called softly from a safe distance. It was never a good idea to startle a bounty hunter, even when they were both already dead and buried. Perhaps that was just a pitiful excuse. Perhaps etiquette was one of the tokens keeping her sane.

He turned around just the bare minimum, raising an eyebrow at her.

“Are you here to banish me from this island too?”, he asked bitterly, turning back to the display of Boba Fett fitfully asleep, hugged to a silver and blue helmet. The one that would complete Jango’s set of armour, if he hadn’t lost it with his head.

“Mind if I sit?”, Lian asked, more to inform him of what she was about to do than to get his permission. So she went and sat down next to him, not quite touching him but not out of his reach either. “He’s grown”, she commented softly.

Jango hummed in affirmation.

“...He looks just like you”, Lian snickered.

“If you are here to make clone jokes you can leave”, Fett snarled.

“Sorry, sorry”, she apologized quickly, feeling honest guilt. “I came to... apologize. For my outburst. You ARE allowed to come into my house.”

“On your own accord?”, he asked with genuine surprise.

“...Maybe I have very insistent brothers-in-law.”

“Remember them that they are not my sons”, Jango growled, staring back at Boba.

“Do it yourself”, Lian deadpanned. He did not reply. “You can’t. You know why? Because you are not a heartless bitch and you can’t believe your own lies anymore.”

Jango narrowed his eyes at her.

“And how would you know that?”

“Your boys helped me see it”, she sighed. “I really believed you didn’t give a shit, you know? That you just... took one. One of millions of children. And you watched them grow and accepted they were going to die for nothing”, she made a pause, reflecting. “But you love Boba. You loved him since the moment he was put in your arms, just like I loved Ducky since the same moment. How could you not love your other kids after spending ten years with them?”

She waited for a reply, a snarl, a shout for her to leave and never come back, but it didn’t came. Lian turned to the former bounty hunter and noticed his trembling. She rested a hand on his back.

“And they sent you?”, he asked quietly.

“Yeah.”

“To tell me I’m allowed to be with them?”

“Yeah. Don’t ask me for the details but they want you there.”

“I’m fine over here.”

“You are alone over here”, she rolled her eyes.

“I have Boba.”

“...It’s not good for him that you are always watching him, you know”, Jango turned to her with a furious scowl, and was about to storm at her, no doubt, but Lian’s eyes were unsettlingly empty as she stared at her nephew. “Everybody is a bit Force-sensitive. Boba doesn’t know, but he _knows_ you are still clinging at him. And as long as you are still clinging, he is never going to let go of you either.”

“I’m NOT going to turn away from my son!”

“I’m not telling you to do that”, Lian replied firmly. “I was like you before. Watching Dani all day and night. I was hurting her because I kept trying to connect with her. I had to back down so she could let go of me and move on”, she explained with a softer voice.

Jango pressed his lips, expression troubled.

“You... let her forget you?”

“No”, she shook her head. “No, Ducky hasn’t forgotten me. I gave her space so she could find new supports, new people. Damn kid went and found those in another motherfucking galaxy”, she laughed shakily. “I should have seen it coming. That she would go and try to find her father, I mean. She was very attached when she was a little girl, you know? Have I ever told you the story behind her nickname?”

“No: all you told me until now was to get my ass away from your house.”

“Ah. Right.”

“...She should have stayed here. Or the original version of ‘here’. That attachment is going to get your daughter killed”, Jango said dryly.

“Well, I have no control over what she does since I died”, Lian shrugged. “And she’s not going to die. She’s going to find her father, reunite with her girlfriend, take her son and go off to live a long, happy life. Did you know I have a grandson? His name is Aleluia. You would love him, he looks just like you!”

Fett facepalmed exasperatedly.

Suddenly the comforting hand returned, squeezing his shoulder gently. Jango turned to his—his... his daughter-in-law slowly.

“Ducky is going to find Boba too, you’ll see”, Lian assured him with a tiny, hopeful smile. “You should have seen her when she met her half-Twi’lek cousins. She was over the moon!”

“Heh. I don’t think Boba is going to be as excited to meet her...”

“I’m sure they will work it out. She’s not going to leave him alone”, Lian replied with a confidence of steel, standing up. “So. Supper at my place. Are you in?”

Jango turned to the sleeping Boba, eyes longing.

“Your kid will find him?”, he asked, and for a moment he was a child asking for a promise.

“I’m certain she will”, Lian nodded, “The Force has mysterious ways. And we are part of the Force now”, she added with a hum.

“Will you teach me?”, he asked with more conviction, turning to her. “Will you teach me to tweak things?”

“Sure”, she replied softly.

She had learned to tweak events on her own, but if there had been someone before her who knew how to do it she would have begged for the knowledge. At least she had Shmi to learn together.

“Then I’ll come. Just... Just to learn.”

“Sure”, Lian smiled smugly. “Pack your things and get on the boat.”

Looking behind one last time, Jango took a deep breath and let the image of his son fade away. For the moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I add Jango in this just to make clone jokes? Perhaps
> 
> This chapter has been written while listening to sad Kingdom Hearts soundtracks, if you know what I mean.


	35. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Sol left Earth, and the aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did someone said SAD BACKSTORY???????
> 
> The language peppered along this chapter is Tagalog, if I have done this right. Lian Luna if officialt Philippina, people, so so his Dani, beacuse cultural identity is important to me and I want to do my best with this fic. I cannot translate everything decently but have in mind that in all "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." chapters the conversations happen in Tagalog. May go backwards and add more words in that language in previous chapters.  
> Meaning that Ducky speaks: Tagalog, Spanish, English, Basic, and a bit of Mando'a.  
> Translations in the end notes

“So you are going to do it”, Lian sighed into her hands, sitting in the kitchen with her husband.

“Yes”, Sol nodded with effort. “Lian, I—”

She rose a hand to stop him.

“You already explained me your decision”, she whispered, eyes on the beacon device resting between them.

Sol pressed his lips, _needing_ to say anything, to explain again, needed for her to tell him that she understood, that it was okay—

Lian turned the beacon on.

“You would live hunted forever if you didn’t at least try, wouldn’t you?”, she asked, eyes tender but unfocused. “And that is not living.”

Was that the most he was going to get? A reluctant agreement?

“I want you to tell Ducky”, she said after taking a gulp of air. “I WON’T have you leaving late at night for her to believe that she wasn’t enough for you to stay. Do you understand?”

“Of course!”, he replied immediately. “Of course...”

“Good”, she mused, and stood up.

“Lian!”, Sol called with desperation, lurching forwards to grab her hand. “I love you”, he said; fearful, genuine, hopeful and hopeless in equal parts.

They held their gazes for a small eternity.

“...I need some space”, she sniffed, tugging.

Sol let go, and watched one of the two people he more loved cry because of him.

 

Ducky knew something was wrong. She knew it because they were all sitting around the table, there wasn’t anything to eat before, mom’s silence was off and dad barely looked her in the eyes.

“Dad has to tell you something, dear”, Lian said softly.

The ten years old turned to her father with big, slightly scared eyes.

Sol panicked for a moment, thought of a hundred ways of sugar coating his words, even came up with a short tale to make it easier for her to understand his decision, why was he _choosing his brothers over his wife and daughter_...

But in the end, he couldn’t. Maybe her growth wasn’t accelerated, but she was ten. He couldn’t disrespect her like that. Not her.

“I’m leaving, Ducky”, he exhaled.

Her face scrunched up in confusion.

“Where? Why?”

Those questions hadn’t been fearful or desperate: they had been ~~commanding~~ demanding.

“I have brothers that I... left behind a long, long time ago, before you were born. I think that they might be in trouble, and I want to go back and help them.”

That was the simplest way to put it without treating her as if she were dumb.

“Why can’t we come with you?”

“It’s dangerous. There’s a war, where they are.”

Ducky’s features switched to worry.

“You are going to war?”

“Yes”, he nodded slowly.

“But people die in wars.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t go”, she said, and this time her voice trembled.

“Ducky—”

Before he could think of a way to reassure her, she had sprung to her feet and dashed to hug his waist.

“Don’t go! Don’t die!”, she wailed, clutching to him.

“I won’t, honey. I won’t”, he shushed her, receiving a mildly disapproving look from Lian.

“Stay...!”, Ducky wailed.

“I can’t. Ducky”, he called softly, taking her in his arms to sit her on his laps. “At least I _need_ to try to help my brothers. I also need to make sure that nobody there knows how to get _here_ , so I know for sure that mom and you are safe from the war...”

“Then we should hide!”, she tried to retort, sniffling. “We should all hide together...!”

“That’s not something you can hide of, kiddo”, Sol said sadly, softly brushing her dark curls.

“But what if you don’t come back?”, she whined, voice shaking as she sobbed hard.

“I—”

“He will”, Lian said suddenly.

Sol’s eyes shot towards her. Lian had been giving him the silent treatment and he had took it, because it’s what he deserved. He hadn’t expected her to vouch for him.

“ _Tatay_ will be alright, and we will be waiting for him. Aren’t you excited that you will meet your uncles?”, she added with a smile aimed for her daughter, and then turned to look at Sol in the eyes.

He didn’t know what had happened in the time Lian had been on her own, but now in her eyes was... trust. A saddened trust, but trust. And he couldn’t have asked for more.

“Thank you”, he whispered to her.

She gave a curt nod.

“You promise...?”, Ducky sniffed. “You promise you will come back?”

“I promise, kiddo”, Sol said with his most tender eyes and smile, cupping her cheeks to kiss her forehead.

His daughter sniffed one more time, drying her tears and snot with her sleeve. “Then I will be waiting”, she said, voice still shaky but steadier than before. “And when you come back, I will have chosen a name, so I will get to introduce myself to you!”, she said with excitement, bouncing a bit on her father’s lap.

“Sounds like a plan!”, he smiled widely.

Ducky giggled and lunged to hug her father.

 

Two weeks later, Lian held Ducky’s hand as Sol waved them goodbye, stepping on the shuttle with the first—no, wait, _second_ alien they had ever seen in their lives. Little Luna waved back vigorously, yelling encouragement to her dad and reminding him that he had to come back soon.

 _“Palagi kita mamahalin”,_ was the last thing Sol said to his _asawa_ and his _iha_.

“ _Hihintayin kita_ ”, Lian whispered to the night’s chilly air.

When the ship disappeared of her sight, she led her daughter inside.

 

“What are you doing?”, Lian asked with curiosity, but also the light bitterness that had made its way out of her mind and into her voice since she had found herself alone with a child.

“I’m waiting for dad”, she replied as if it were obvious, sitting in their garden and looking up at the starry sky. “He has been gone for a week, so he is due to come back soon, right?”

Her mother sighed. She was tired of working. Tired of explaining why nobody saw her husband around anymore. Tired of having her heart brake every time Ducky commented she missed her father and made up fantasies about what he must be doing. She sat down next to her daughter.

“I don’t think he is coming back today, _ni_. A week it’s not that much time... Even less if your father is travelling great lengths.”

“But he is travelling very, very, very fast, right? Then it won’t take so long!”

“...How about I tell you a bit about space and stars? To pass the time?”

“ _Oo! Oo!_ ”, she bounced happily.

 

It dawned on her two years later.

She was biking back home from school and it just—hit. Her hands and arms trembled, she fell off the bike and just sat there on the floor, crying. Some people went over to her to check if she was hurt, but she just had some scratches. They tried to ask her what was wrong, but she could only cry and cry. Eventually they pulled her to her feet and she walked home with her bike, still crying.

It was Lian’s free day, so she was at home when Ducky slammed the door open.

“Hey! Be gentle with that!”, she called before she picked up on the crying. She put the book she had been reading down and walked to meet her daughter.

She was breathing hard, face scrunched with emotional pain and hate burning wild behind her eyes.

“What’s the matter?”, Lian asked with a thread of voice, barely believing that her daughter could be looking at her like that.

“... _Tatay_ isn’t coming back, isn’t he?”, she managed to ask, despite not needing an answer.

They stared at each other for a small eternity.

“...Let’s sit down”, the mother sighed, dragging a chair away from the table.

“I DON’T WANT TO SIT!”

“Do. Not. Raise your voice at me. Have I raised MY voice? No, right?”

Ducky grumbled, but did not sit down, instead crossing her arms angrily. She let out a sound, something between a growl and a sniff.

“You ALLOWED dad to leave!!! To leave US!!!”, she screeched.

“We both did”, Lian nodded, making an effort to remain calm so she could deal with Ducky’s feelings.

“I was 10!!! I didn’t get he was going to WAR in another GALAXY!!!”

“Ducky, your tone”, the woman warned gently, fearing the neighbours may hear.

“Dad is an ALIEN!”, she raised her hands into the air, exasperated. “Am I even human?!”

“Would it matter if you were not?”

Luna put her hands down, jaw slack, eyes wild as thoughts raced through her mind.

“... _Tatay_ left us”, she whined, tears streaming. “Dad abandoned us...”

“He will come back”, she replied, loud and clear.

“You don’t know that!!!”

“He will come back, because he PROMISED”, Lian punctuated.

“He has been gone for two years!!! And his promise won’t be worth shit if he gets shot or spaced or cut or eaten by aliens!!”

“ _Mahal ko_ , I know you are angry and confused, but you need to calm down—”

“How am I supposed to calm down when I just REALISED that my father ABANDONED ME???!!!!!!!”

There was no reply to that. Lian just stared at her sadly. Ducky didn’t have anything else to say, either. She leaned against a wall and slid down to the floor, crying. The elder Luna went to sit beside her. It wasn’t long before little Dani leaned to her, accepting what comfort her mother offered as she caressed her hair.

“I know that he left”, Lian mused, “I know I could have stopped him. Just remind him that he was happy here, that we would be safe and have a long life with you and each other... But oh, Ducky... If you could have seen the way he looked up at the stars every night... He knew his brothers were in danger, and not doing anything was eating him alive...”

“So he chose his brothers over us”, she sniffed angrily.

“He chose to try and help. And I couldn’t stop him from doing that, Ducky. He would have never said anything, but I couldn’t forgive myself if I told him to abandon his brothers.”

“So you let him abandon me. And you.”

“He will come back.”

“You keep saying that, but we don’t know! We don’t know if he is still alive, we don’t know where he is, we can’t contact him!”

“I made him promise me he would come back if it was too much. If his brothers couldn’t be saved. I made him promise that he would come back to us...”

“What’s his word worth if he’s dead?”, Ducky whined.

“He’s not”, Lian replied, a strange... something in her voice. “He is not.”

“What if he doesn’t come back?”

Lian sighed, fearing that she would get stuck in a loop. The woman blinked, her eyes lighting up with an idea.

“Tell you what. If he isn’t back by the time you are sixteen, we’ll go and find him ourselves.”

Ducky finally, _finally_ turned her head to look at her mother in the eyes. “We? Going to outer space?”

“Well, it’s an option”, Lian half-shrugged, “We still have the distress beacon I helped your  _ama_ repair. It will probably need a new battery, but...”

“Let’s do it”, the kid blurted out. “Let’s turn it on as soon as possible!—”

“It’s not that easy, _ni_. We have lots of things to consider, plan and gather before being remotely ready to go. If we use the four years window, we can collect everything we need with no rush, and give some more time to your father to come back on his own. What do you say?”

“What do we need? Food and water? Tents? We need big backpacks to fit everything in!”

Lian smiled as her daughter sprung to her feet, eager to get on with their plan. She had no words for how relieved she felt; seeing Ducky with a clear objective to help her move on from the despair and abandonment.

“As I said: we’ll have time for that”, she said more cheerfully, standing up.

“I will pack up my favourite movies!”, little Luna said excitedly, running off to collect them.

“No more than three, okay? We will need the room for other stuff”, she called out, and walked to the notebook in the kitchen, writing the title for their list. She caught herself being genuinely excited with the idea of following her lover into the stars, and not only as an excuse to help Ducky through grief.

_The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_

Lian smiled to her own reference, hoping that one day she could share it with Sol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Ama/Tatay = dad  
> Palagi kita mamahalin = I will always love you  
> Hihintayin kita = I'll wait for you  
> Oo = yes  
> Ni = short for honey  
> Iha = daughter  
> Mahal ko = my love


	36. Smooth, Slick; smooth. Starring the 327th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rushed mission, lots of talk, lots of intel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of Blyla because I couldn't help it

“—an’t reach the delivery zone, the medics are understaffed and we are under fire! We can’t risk them getting shot and we can’t spare men to fetch the supplies!”, a 327th Captain explained in a frenetic rush.

He was wearing full armour and shooting every now and then, barely tilting his face towards the long-range communicator.

They had heard it was bad, but the poor man’s tone and the exhausted slouch confirmed it.

“Send us the coordinates of the med-tent”, Dani commanded.

“I—“, he seemed to hesitate for a moment, but the situation was too critical for doubt. “Yes, sir.”

“We’ll be there in less than three hours. Hold on”, she tried her best to encourage him. “The supplies will be delivered to the best of our abilities.”

“Yessir!”

The connection cut out as he turned to shoot at something.

“Call Feather, tell him I need four volunteers willing to do NSFW parachuting.”

“Yessir!”, Dogma saluted, already reaching for his comm.

Ian stopped him gently. “Just to make sure tell them they HAVE to come in full armour”, the Commander clarified, narrowing his eyes at Dani.

“Aw, Ian! Come on, it’s an inside joke, Feather already knows!”, she whined jokingly.

“I also know he is capable of presenting himself naked. Sir.”

“Yeah you are right about that”, she smiled mischievously.

Ian let go of Dogma’s wrist.

“Do call him and pass the message. Plus the full armour side note”, he sighed.

“Yes, sir...?”, the Captain asked with some hesitation, but still proceeded.

“You inform the pilots, Ian. It’s important that we maintain the escort of all supplies ships”, Dani went on, standing up and bolting to leave.

“Just tell me the plan already! You and your stupid habit of doing everything on your own!”, he shouted, and Dani actually froze, staring at him with wide eyes. “It’s not okay, Dani! It’s not productive, it doesn’t make you look cool! We are supposed to know what’s going on inside your head, not guess it from vague orders!”

His rant lingered inside the meeting room. Dogma was as frozen as Luna, eyes jumping between them in a barely controlled panic because _oh Force he just shouted at our commanding officer oh Force—_

Instead of an equal or greater reaction, their General shifted out of her stiffness and took a deep breath, eyes trained on the floor and slowly raising to meet Ian’s.

“I’m sorry”, she said, voice wavering. “I’m sorry. You are right. I’m sorry.”

The Commander sighed, deflating.

“Go put whatever together, but I expect to be properly debriefed in less than an hour.”

Dani gave a curt nod and left in a hurry. Ian sighed yet again, this time turning to Dogma.

“Sorry about that. She gets too excited about plans and forgets that we don’t share her train of thought.”

“It’s, uh, no problem, sir.”

“Yes, yes it is”, Ian insisted, though there was no anger or resentment in his voice. “Because I am used to it, but you are not; so you need to know why she does what she does”, he went on, leaning his weight on the table.

Dogma shifted where he stood, not sure of what was he supposed to say.

“We all have issues”, the Commander went on. “Dani has _trust_ issues, to be precise. Not the kind that doesn’t let anybody get close, no”, he chuckled dryly. “The kind that will give her anxiety if she doesn’t supervise everything that needs to be done. ‘It’s not my fault’, she says. ‘I’m an Aries’, she says. As if I knew what the _kriff_ does that mean. It’s not that she thinks we are incompetent, she just—She needs to feel in control, I guess. I called her out on it not long after we met and she’s making a conscious effort to change, but she still needs a heads up every now and then. Just... Just encourage her to rely on you, okay? And once you feel comfortable call her out on her bullshit. _Then_ , she will know she can trust you for sure.”

It was weird. But well: everything had been since his bureaucratic rescue, and it was slowly becoming his new ‘normal’. And Commander Ian was a direct, well-meaning man, so following his advice, as disrespectful as it seemed, was probably a good idea.

“I understand, sir”, the Captain nodded finally. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Thank you for listening. You are dismissed.”

Dogma nodded dutifully and walked away to make the call and supervise the preparations for the supplies delivery. He hadn’t completely figured out Luna yet, but Commander Ian was reliable. And he knew what made their General tick, by the looks of it.

“Feather. You are to meet with the General with four volunteers willing to do ‘not safe for work’ parachuting.

“Woooooohhhh!!!”, came the excited reply.

“ _With_ full armour”, Dogma pointed out.

“Aww...”

The disappointed sound seemed to be the product of several voices.

 

“Reaching the delivery zone”, Maps announced on the speakers.

“In position, in position!”, Dani yelled as her men and herself scrambled to climb on top of the medical supplies crates, hanging tight on the box’s harnesses that tied them to their parachutes.

“You are excited, you bastard!”, Feather called from behind her.

“Cranky because I get to go first?”, she turned to raise a brow at him. Quite ineffective, since she was wearing her helmet.

“Yes and you know it!”

“Wanna switch places?”

“Actually, yes!”

And like children, but also the efficiency of trained soldiers, they switched crates as the backdoor of the transport opened.

“Deliver time!”, the pilot chanted before an alarm blared.

“Let’s get this bread!!!!”, Luna howled among the cheers of the troops as they were pushed off the ship.

They had to grit their teeth as gravity took them, clinging onto the harnesses for dear life (they had taken the Spider Squad harnesses and attached them to the crates, but they still relied on hanging on themselves for not getting crushed by the containers). The parachutes deployed and everybody rushed to climb on top of the crates, the sounds of battle roaring below them. It took a moment for Dani to orientate herself and figure out which way was the camp, as the drop zone was a considerable distance away to make sure the enemy wouldn’t get the supplies; but Feather had beaten her up to it and was already manoeuvring the parachute towards their destination. She pulled hard on a harness to steer herself in the right direction, diving towards the main camp and the battle zone. The group fought against gushes of wind and the occasional stray laser bolt, raising surprised exclamations when they flew over the outskirts of the camp. Barely five minutes after jumping off the transport the medical supplies were delivered right by the med-tent.

“Doorstep delivery!”, Dani announced, kicking the lid open and jumping to the dusty floor.

Feather and the others did the same without prompt, taking as much supplies as they could carry to bring them to the medics inside. Men from the 327th joined them, most of them limping or nursing other non life-threatening injuries. Luna was pretty sure she was supposed to go and find the General and/or Commander, but she couldn’t NOT grab her own handful and bring it inside. The med-tent was as hellish as she had imagined. The stench of blood and bodily fluids reached her nose despite the air filter in her helmet, agonized groans and desperate screams piercing her eardrums and drowning her thoughts—

“Here”, she spoke to a medic scrambling through almost empty containers with cold professionalism. “More are on the way.”

“Thanks the Force!”, they muttered without sparing a glance, taking an hypo and a clean scalpel and running off.

Ducky forced herself to not look where he was going, because she had been called to deliver supplies and reinforce the frontlines, to win time to get them out of there; not to extract them herself.

“General Luna?”, a panting voice asked behind her, and she turned around, barely recognising the Captain’s dirty armour.

“Yes”, she nodded curtly. As usual, she wasn’t wearing her insignia, but the civilian clothes sticking out from under the white armour were good enough of an indicator. The light blue button-up shirt was easy to spot.

“General Aayla and Commander Bly are in the front”, he pointed behind him, taking a second to catch his breath. “They request your presence ASAP.”

“Gotcha”, she nodded. “My men will be here to help soon. There’s stims among the supplies we brought if you need them”, she added with a clap on his shoulder before running off.

She shamelessly prodded around for Secura’s presence, not even meaning to find her but asking _her_ to tell her her location. It paid off: the Jedi replied loud and clear enough that Dani could follow her trail once Aayla stopped paying her attention. It wasn’t long before she saw the blue hue of her lightsaber, and she skidded from cover to cover to reach her side and turn on her own weapon to help her deflect enemy fire.

“Dani Luna here”, she reported. “Medical supplies delivered successfully, my troops should be here in less than five.”

“I’m glad to hear that, General Luna”, Aayla nodded politely, sparing her a glance even thought the enemy fire didn’t die down even a bit.

“So. What’s our plan once the reinforcements get here?”, the younger asked, because it wasn’t polite to start proposing new plans when she had just gotten there.

“First of all we need to gain more ground!”, Bly growled from behind Aayla, relatively safe and with a good position to shoot.

“Yeah, I get that; but do you mean to press on or retreat?”

“It will depend on what your men can do to help us, Luna”, replied the other General.

The argument could have went on, because Dani _really_ wanted to know if her troops were wanted to gain ground or cover a retreat, and she was really rooting for the retreat because, in her military experience, this was a lost battle. But she was the backup, and Aayla had the lead, so she shut up and decided to give it a few more minutes before pressing on with her ideas.

Not long after white armours painted in black spilled through their lines, backing up the scarce 327thers still standing and substituting those who needed a brake. The extra fire managed to shoot down several rows of incoming droids, and they finally managed to advance a bit. A familiar armour, of pectorals painted black with an horizontal stripe joining the black squares right over a collarbone caught her eye.

“Shades! What are you doing here? I thought you would stay in camp!”

“Apple and Apollo got it under control, sir!”, he replied.

“And Dogma is coordinating the helpers that have stayed there”, Ian reported through the comms right before snipping a droideka before it deployed its shield.

“Everything seems to be under control on my side”, Dani reported to Aayla. “How do you want to proceed?”

The Twi’lek turned to Bly, and both of them nodded.

“We will press on”, she declared.

 _Hmmmmmmmmm_ , Ducky went inside her mind, and not because of war related stuff.

“Okay then”, she kinda shrugged.

The two ‘saber wielders fell into a comfortable position, deflecting enemy fire to allow the troops room to move from cover to cover and shoot back in relative safety; moving every know and then to cover the ever-on-the-move medics and split the enemy forces. Thermal detonators and droid-poppers were thrown and enemy units snipped, shot or slashed through as the Republic advanced towards the town on the top of a nearby hill. Dani spared a glance at the weird-ass shoes that were part of the standard trooper armour. If she had known she would be hiking she would have put on her mountain boots...

“Watch out!”, somebody suddenly shouted, and she was roughly pushed to a side, tumbling on the ground with the dominant thought of rushing to switch off her blade before somebody lost a limb as the world swirled in her retinas.

And then, the explosion.

The heat reached her and she tensed, twisting the get her feet under her, Force-sight expanding and hand already reaching for whoever had tackled her. With a mighty pull, she skidded behind cover, accidentally slamming her saviour against the rock.

“Shit, sorry! You okay?!”

And as the frenzy died down, she recognized Commander Bly.

“I’m fine, sir”, came the slightly dazed reply.

Dani glanced behind her, where the spot she had been standing on was now a crater.

“Mortar fire!!!”, somebody yelled.

“Yeah, we noticed”, Luna muttered to herself, turning again to check on Bly.

He had not lied: they were both displaying the aftereffects of having a bomb detonate within meters from you, but they had avoided burns and shrapnel wounds, apparently.

“Dani?!”, Ian called frantically through the comms.

“I’m okay, we’re okay! Can you see the artillery?”

“On it!”

“Everybody take cover!!”, Aayla ordered as a very distinctive whistle (how hadn’t she heard it before???????) threatened to pierce their ears.

Ducky looked up, to the light descending on them _too vertical, too fast, we can’t hide we can’t run—_

She stood up and threw her hands up in the air: a bluish, decently wide Force-shield raising between them and the fire. The impact made her tremble and she ultimately fell on her ass, but at least they weren’t brunt to a crisp.

“Over here!!!”, some troopers called over, where they had found the entrance to a cave, where they would have better cover from the onslaught above.

“Go”, she nudged Bly to move before turning and creating a new shield, this time to allow for more troopers to move safely towards the cave.

Not long after they rendezvoused in the cave. Despite their efforts, men had succumbed to the enemy fire, the stench of burnt flesh filling the air.

“Do you see the mortars?”, Luna asked into her comm.

“Uphill, sir. It’s going to be hard getting there, even with a small team.”

Okay, yeah, they could still go and, what: conquer the town? Conquering took a hell of a lot of time. And in the position they where, having to run straight through 200 metres of meadowland just to reach the foot of the hill? The casualties were going to be too grate to secure the town properly.

“Aayla—”

“It’s too risky, I know”, the Jedi nodded before Dani could explain her concern. “Whoever’s up there, they are good”, she mused, looking at the town in the distance.

Ducky guessed she was referring the enemy leader or something.

“They have a new General or something?”

“Yes. Too adaptable to be a droid.”

“Hm”, she hummed, not meaning anything. She had captured or killed her fair share of Separatist Generals, most of them of species she had never interacted before. She felt less guilty when they were droids. “We’re retreating, then?”

“Yes. Can you do something to get us some more time? We’ll need as much time as we can to evacuate.”

Dani blinked, catching on the verbal trap that had been settled around her.

“Oh, yeah”, she rolled her eyes, standing up from her crouch by the cave’s entrance. “Someday somebody will have an idea that doesn’t imply me committing ANOTHER war crime. But yeah, sure: send the invisible woman to assassinate somebody, I mean, who’s going to notice, am I right?”, she gesticulated, walking away as she faded away. But she halted suddenly, turning around.

“Venus!”

“Here, sir!”, the solider called from further within the cave, standing up.

“Catch!”, Dani called, and passed her her lightsaber. “What? She is better at it than me”, she shrugged when Bly and Aayla stared at her. “Cover the retreat!”

“Will do, sir!”

A few beats after she disappeared completely, they could still hear her bickering.

“Uh, don’t take it badly, General Secura, sir”, Ian said through the comms. “Bitching is one of her coping mechanisms.”

“Damn right it is!”, Dani bit back. “Going radio silent.”

“I appreciate, Luna. We’ll see you back at camp.”

Aayla’s voice was a tad regretful, maybe even ashamed. For a moment, Ducky considered telling her that it was okay, that she wasn’t really angry: just steeling herself to backstab somebody. Well, maybe her child-self was giving her a disappointed look, _but shut up, it’s you who wanted to find dad in the first place!!_

And with that the child-self gave an angry huff and turned around.

Her actual Force-running speed was alike the one of a speeder pushed to its limit, so compared to what it would have taken to advance with everybody else, it was just a blink. She was breathing heavily when she reached the outskirts of town after dodging plenty of droids, but she was mostly fine. She took a moment to catch her breath, and once she felt that she wasn’t being too loud, she expanded her Force-sight at maximum. The town wasn’t four mere houses thrown together, but it wasn’t too big either that it didn’t fit inside her range. Noticing the living signal among the electricity of the droids was so damn easy that she would have gloated to herself had not the presence stirred bad memories. It left a bitter taste in the back of her mind, but the memories didn’t click. Part disturbed and part curious by the reaction, she carefully set off to find that person.

There were patrols of standard droids through the streets, with some commandos with sniper rifles posted on the flat roofs. Dani walked like the invisible woman she knew she was, but always keeping an eye open in case some of those had a new sensor or something. Last thing she wanted was to die dumbly.

The command centre was located in a building like any other, without anything special about it, at least on the outside. She walked in with a patrolling droid and looked around carefully. The setup was somehow familiar, if not for the different displays of statistics and information and the presence of droids sitting at computers or other stations. Now that strange Force-signal was right there, in the same room, barely seven steps away from her. Dani took the first, taking out her pocket knife and prodding again at the presence, and again she felt that tiny spark of recognition, but it quickly got shadowed by a sense of unease. Another step, another try: her heart clenched. Third step, and a tear fell to the floor.

About ten blasters pointed at her, including the General’s.

Dark eyes studied her, but could not see pass her helmet, despite an incomplete clone armour being odd enough.

“Slick...?”

His eyes went wide, but he did not lower his weapon.

“...Ducky?”, he asked, eyes darting over her body as if trying to compare her to whatever memory he had of her.

“Yeah”, she replied, slowly raising her hands and switching off her blade to take of the helmet.

“Stay still, Republic scum!”, a droid jumped.

“Nobody shoot!”

“But, General...!”

“I said HOLD YOUR FIRE!”

The droid did not protest further, and Luna finally slid off her helmet, blinking at Slick.

“You, uh, have grown...”, he commented with an awkward smile.

“I’m kinda surprised you even remember me to be honest”, she laughed nervously. “Never thought I’d see you again, even less in a battlefield... I was told Unruly is a hairdresser now, I thought you would be off to do whatever you wanted to”, she scratched the back of her head.

“Well, I chose this”, he gestured to the command centre. “To fight for something I believe in.”

“Cool, cool, huh—”

“Wait. Why are you here?”, he asked, eying her suspiciously.

“The plan was to, you know, murder you to cause a bit of chaos and have some more time for the evac, but that’s cancelled now because I really don’t want to kill you”, she smiled sheepishly.

“You are retreating then?”

“Yeah, if you could be a dear and call down some troops that would be great and I wouldn’t have to sabotage you. Or at least call off the cannons.”

“Hm. Spunky, tell the gunners to increase the shooting interval in 100%”

“Uhhhhhhh yessir, General, sir!” a droid with silver circles drawn around its eyes saluted and marched off.

“Spunky”, Dani chuckled.

“Wasn’t going to throw my integrity overboard and call them numbers”, he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Glad to hear that”, she smiled softly, and somehow, the tension among them dissipated a bit. “Well, huh, I’m glad it’s going well for you. Hope you don’t die and all that...”, she waved, already turning to leave.

“Wait!”, Slick called out. “It’s actually a good thing that you are here. Naai’na’ra asked me to pass you something if we met. Which by the way, it’s not easy to keep track of you.”

“Thanks, it’s my erratic behaviour and disregard for authority”, she shot back, but her eyes were trained on the flimsi that Slick was handing her.

She frowned, had she asked something of her? She didn’t know what it could be at the moment, but another idea popped up in her head and the excitement overrode curiosity.

“Oh! Could you give her something back?”

“I’m a General, not a messenger”, he sighed tiredly. “But I’ll do it, because I owe you”, he shrugged dramatically.

“Aw, come on, I’ll even let you see what it is!”

“I have no need to—“, he started, but Dani had already taken out her phone.

“Do you have a datapad? I’m sending you a picture.”

“This isn’t a plot to get a virus inside the Separatist system, isn’t it?”, Slick asked suspiciously.

“First of all: I’m the worst at computers. Second of all: no mate, it’s just a picture that I want Naai to have!”, she whisper-shouted. She wasn’t very comfortable talking personal business among battle droids.

“So it went quite well with the contact we sent you, huh”, he smirked, pulling out a device of his own.

“Oh, man, if you knew...”, she giggled before clearing her throat. “This is serious, though. This is mean to go straight to Naai, no more intermediaries, and you have to erase it once you have delivered it, okay? It’s very important for our safety.”

“Understood”, he nodded curtly.

Dani held his gaze, took a deep breath and sent the picture.

“Hm. Who’s the kid?”

“She’ll know”, she replied, deciding against explaining her personal life.

“Okay... What about the flimsi, then? Do you want to read it here in case you have to reply?”

“Oh, yeah, sure”, she said absentmindedly, unfolding the paper.

_Echo_

_From Citadel to Techno Union_

_Planet Skako Minor_

_Be careful. Chirps and cuddles,_

_Naai_

“What is it?”, Slick asked with a slight fidget, seeing how she had went completely still.

Dani just brought a hand over her mouth, blinking to get rid of the tears and be able to re-read what she had in front.

“He’s alive”, she muttered. “He is REALLY alive...”

“A friend of yours?”, he asked with gravity, catching on on the situation.

“He was taken months ago. I FUCKING FORGOT that I had asked Naai to look for him”, she snarled to herself, grabbing at her hair.

Ducky closed her eyes, took deep breaths, and allowed herself to be loud for a brief moment because _HOLY SHIT. HolY ShIT!!!!_

“Thank you”, she said suddenly, letting her arms fall limp. “Tell Naai that I said thank you. And thank YOU”, Luna punctuated, finally closing the distance between them and hugging Slick.

He went rigid at first, but managed to ease himself a bit into it.

“I owed you”, he said yet again.

“You don’t owe me shit”, Dani shook her head, stepping back. “Thank you, Slick. Really. I’m glad to see you alive and well.”

“There’s something else”, his features hardened, catching Ducky’s attention. She waited for him to continue, her eyes trained on his. “We want to end this. The war, I mean. Ducky: we want you to help us take down the Republic from the inside.”

“I’m already doing that”, she replied firmly. “If you are in touch with Naai’na’ra you already know why I am here, what I want from all of this; and I can’t do more without risking the lives of your brothers on Kamino...!”

“That’s the thing”, Slick continued calmly. “I will personally lead the invasion on Kamino and keep the cadets safe until we have everything under control.”

Dani blinked at him.

“Excuse me?”, she said low and slow.

If tones could kill, that would have decapitated him with the finesse of a guillotine.

“Fucking invade Kamino again, you say?”, she went on, blinking incredibly fast or slow, he couldn’t tell. “I happened to be there when there was the first Separatist invasion. It was NOT. FUN”, she growled.

“Listen, I know, but—”

“99 DIED THAT DAY, SLICK! A GOOD FRIEND!”, Dani barked, tears streaming. “I HAD TO FUCKING GO AND SAVE A FULL BATCH OF CADETS BECAUSE DROIDS HAD THEM CORNERED AND THEY WERE GOING TO _SLAUGHTER THEM!!!”_

Her chest heaved as she made a pause, glaring daggers at him.

“Come on! Say something!”, she shrieked.

Slick closed his eyes, breathing deeply.

“Are you done?”

That sparked more anger in her than anything he could have said trying to defend himself. But despite the frustration and the fire consuming her chest and brain, she didn’t resort to violence. Ducky turned and huffed and kicked the floor and let out screeches and curses in languages nobody there understood, her rational mind gaining more ground with the released emotions. She finally turned to the other General, obviously still not happy with the idea but at least certain that she wasn’t going to cause a blackout, or worse.

“I’m not going to apologize for that invasion. You... you already know why I did it.”

Dani averted her gaze at that. Yeah, yeah she did. And didn’t really blame him for it, it was just... It still hurt. That was all.

“That was planed by Grievous and the Sith”, Slick continued. “This one we are planning without their knowledge.”

“Who’s, then?”

“Naai’na’ra’s.”

Luna refrained from shouting a _WHAT_ and instead chewed at her nails, vaguely trying to hide an hysterical smile.

“You’ll have to elaborate a bit on that because she has never mentioned to me that she has enough power over the military to do that.”

“Well, it’s a new thing”, he blurted out, suddenly... embarrassed? “Stuff goes on in Separatist space, too. And you are not easy to contact from this side. The thing is: Naai’na’ra is in charge of this.”

And that, he didn’t even need to mention, was an insurance to make sure Dani would agree. She huffed in irritation.

“Will you listen to what I have to say now?”, he arched an eyebrow, going back to the serious approach.

“Yeah, but not just because you have invoked Naai’s name”, she huffed again, crossing her arms on her chest.

“Alright. So let’s say: the only reason you can’t put all the pieces in place and call for the ultimate strike is because you _know_ all clones on Kamino would be terminated as soon as the news made it there, correct?”

Luna nodded. That was pretty much it.

“So the plan is: I stay stationed with my fleet near the planet, right outside the galaxy’s limits—”

“You have a fleet?”

“—and we wait for your call”, he proceeded, taking a small device, this one consisting of a only button secured under a glass safety and handing it to her. “You push the button when you decide it’s the moment for shit to go down. I get the call; we are on Kamino before the long-necks know and we sweep in: only stun blasters, we subdue whoever has to be subdued and talk down who can be talked down.”

“They are all going to fight you”, she muttered. “You know that, right?”

“Yes”, Slick nodded slowly. “That’s why I need your permission to invoke your name just like I used Naai’na’ra’s.”

“My name?”, she huffed a laugh. “What are you going to accomplish with that?”

“To gain their trust.”

Dani gave him an incredulous look.

“I think you underestimate how much of a _legend_ you have become among clones. Nobody had ever done what you did.”

“Reuniting enough brain cells to reach the conclusion that I had to undergo military training to become a decent General?”, she snorted.

“I can’t speak for myself, but for what other brothers had told me: to become a _vod_.”

Dani startled.

“They said that?”

He replied with a curt nod.

_Damn, that’s touching_

“Whatever”, she sighed. “If you think that will help keep the casualties down, do it.”

“The expected casualties are zero, Ducky.”

“We all know it’s not likely to go like that”, she shook her head, defeated.

“I swear to you: I will keep my brothers safe”, Slick said, fisting his hand over his heart.

She sighed, and mimicked him.

“I _will_ call you when the time is right.”

“Thank you, Ducky”, he nodded quietly. “Hope next time we see each other there aren’t as many blasters around. Now: we both have a role to play.”

Dani gave him a knowing smirk, and vanished.

“Sir...?”, Spunky asked carefully.

“You are to never speak about this exchange. That’s an order.”

A chorus of _Roger roger_ was all the answer he needed.

 

Venus irradiated badassery as she wielded the cobalt blue lightsaber. Her movements were smooth and precise. It almost seemed like the blade was an extension of the painted black vines that curled around her arms and legs, her chest plate a composition of leaves and thorns and her helmet the last thing creatures saw when faced by a Felucian Meat-eater Venus. Just as had happened with Aayla and Dani, the Jedi and the clone trooper and found their own rhythm and were working well together. They had already retreated as much as they could: now they were holding the line until it was their turn to evacuate.

Dani popped into existence behind them, drawing a DC from her belt to contribute with something to the situation.

“I’m back”, she informed everybody, startling some nearby troopers. “Did something explode while I wasn’t here?”

“Fortunately, nothing important”, Secure shot back. “I take your mission went well?”

“The enemy leader is not dead, but I did manage to throw off the gunners.”

“It will do!”, she nodded with conviction.

_Is it wrong to lie to my aunt?_

The thought crossed her mind, but she discarded it. Even if her intuition was right and she and Bly were an item, she didn’t need to know that. And Dani didn’t need two more people trying to parent her: Shades, Ian, Pedal, Yaddle, Kix, Plo, Wolffe and Boil were more than enough for the moment, thank you very much.

“Dogma, how’s it going?”, she asked into the comm.

“All injured are as stabilized as they can be and being loaded, sir. They’ll be breaking atmosphere in less than ten.”

“Good, then; see you soon.”

“Want your ‘saber back, sir?”, Venus called, sparing her a glance.

“No need: you’re doing amazing, sweetie!”

Venus gave a loud laugh; Aayla joining her with a lighter chuckle.

“You are pretty good at this”, the Jedi smiled. “Did Luna teach you?”

“With all due respect, I wouldn’t be this good if she had taught me.”

“Oh, I see how it is!”, Dani said loudly, but there was no resentment in her voice.

“Maybe my General could learn something from yours and start wearing SOME ARMOUR”, Bly piped up.

Secura huffed, as if they had had this conversation hundreds of times already.

“Well, it gets dirty pretty easily. It’s a bit annoying...”, Ducky shrugged.

“You know what’s annoying? Dying from a shot that wouldn’t have been lethal if you had been wearing armour”, the Commander went on.

“Bly...”, Aayla said in a warning tone.

But it seemed like he had ran out of fucks to give.

“No, no; you told me you would rather not wear armour because you have more range of movement: well, Luna here just ran up and down WITH armour—”

“Please don’t weaponize me for this...”

“—my argument is, and always has been: standard armour can save you of a stray bolt! An unexpected shot in the back!”

“Bly—”

“And what would I do without you, Aayla?”

Everybody went surprisingly silent. Apart from the shooting of blasters, of course. The Commander had seemed to realise his words with a startle, and spared a glance at the 0thers.

“Ah, don’t mind us”, Venus said awkwardly. “This is none of our business. Right, Dani?”

“So we can get dragged in for the ‘married couple argument’ but we can’t stay for the romantic drama?”

“No, General!”, the trooper retorted, kicking back a rock that ricocheted on Dani’s helmet.

“Auch”, she voiced nonetheless. “Okay, okay: whatever, it’s none of our business. Do you need space to talk about it or...?”

“I—”

“General Luna, I assure you we—”

“What makes you think I give a damn about if you love each other or not?”, Dani cut them. “I left the Order because I think the affection rule is bullshit. And I wouldn’t try to take something as great as love from ANYBODY. Your relation is strictly professional? Good. You guys have been melting for each other? Congrats, I’m genuinely glad for you! You don’t want to tell me? No problem, my dudes”, she kept shooting.

“But—You are Head of Internal Affairs now...”, Secura prodded.

“And you think I will waste time gossiping around? Ma’am, I’m in this position to avoid abuse of power. As long as I don’t get proof or a notice telling me that you are blackmailing or mistreating somebody, I don’t care.”

Her tone had been dismissing, almost bored. It did upset her a bit that she had to explain why she wouldn’t sanction love. She shook her head minutely. This was so fucked up...

The group kept retreating in relative silence. Dani was moody, and they all sensed it. When they made it back to base, only two gunships were left.

“Do you need to re-supply?”, Luna asked, and _damn_ they were all so relieved it didn’t sound angry, just carefully professional.

“On medical items, at the very least”, Bly nodded.

“Send us a list and we’ll give you what we can”, she said, and made a beeline to go where Dogma was waving her over in one if the gunships, Venus following suit. “Hey, Captain”, she greeted with a smile in her voice. “How did it go?”

“Uh, I’d say quite well, sir. A bit stressful...”, he added, lower.

“Yeah, I get that. I’m a bit shaken too. But we’ll be alright”, she tried to cheer him up, her hand ghosting over the pocketed piece of flimsi.


	37. Kamino VI: Delta Intern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Field experience!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen I have only watched a playthrough of Republic Commando in my life so I'm sorry if it's a bit out of character  
> Btw there's now a skecth of Aleluia on my Tumblr, tagged "Aleluia" and "Ducky"

The heavy rain was not even a factor at this point: just an annoying inconvenience that couldn’t be helped. Dani tapped her feet on the platform floor out of boredom, splashing a bit of water. Shaak Ti glanced at her, but said nothing. Luna was wearing standard armour, so the rain bounced off of her, but the Jedi was wearing only her robes and was soaking wet. The younger wondered how could she be looking so chill. That must be uncomfortable.

The zoom of an incoming shuttle startled her into a military posture. Her heart drummed, about to brake her ribcage. She gave herself an annoyed huff: why the nerves? _Because you are being sent to the field because you are about to meet clone commandos because you could die because you don’t know them because you’ll be alone with four men because—_

She stopped herself there. _I can go invisible, I can stay safe, I can use my new skills_ , she countered, and managed to calm down a bit as the ramp deployed and the entrance opened.

Four blue visors glared ominously through the rain.

And the commandos walked down to meet them.

“General”, the one walking on the front, with orange paint over his armour greeted.

“Deltas”, Shaak Ti nodded back. “This is Dani Luna. She will be accompanying you on this mission”, she gestured to her.

“Sir”, she nodded curtly, deciding against unnecessary stutters and awkward attempts at more informal introductions.

“Welcome to the Deltas for a day, trooper. Get on board and ready for debriefing.”

“Yessir!”, she saluted, and turned to Shaak Ti to return the gesture.

“Hi, I’m Fixer”, piped up the one in green armour, following her when she walked past. “Come with me: we have some spare armour that will make you more good than the standard.”

“Okay”, she nodded, taking in the commando armour.

It was... cooler. It covered more body, that’s for sure. And maybe it was because of the way they had painted their armours, but damn. She was eager to try it on.

The commando armour, though, had not been made in her size: resulting on the chest plate being a little too big, but not enough to be uncomfortable or a nuisance; and the codpiece to not be able to slip past her thighs.

“Looks like today is not the day where I’ll be back to using diapers”, she snorted, greatly amused and relieved by the fact.

“Don’t complain later if you get a shot to the ass”, Fixer snorted back.

“I can’t, for the love of my life, bring myself to deprive the world of the sight of my breath-taking butt.”

The commando snorted louder. Yeah, she would be alright.

 

“Boss”, Shaak Ti proceeded once Dani and Fixer had disappeared into the ship. “Since this is still part of her training, I’m keeping her lightsaber. But she is allowed to use the Force.”

“Understood, sir. Anything else we need to know?”

“You have her scores and observations at your disposition. This is the first time so leaves Kamino in almost two years and she is _still_ a teenager, so perhaps she will push around to test limits. I do not think she would do anything reckless, though.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“We’ll bring her back so seasoned that she will be ready for commando training”, Scorch chirped, already walking away.

“Please, have you seen her? I doubt she could even pick up a heavy gun...”, Sev muttered.

Shaak Ti watched as the two walked away, but did not attempt to dispense Jedi wisdom.

“Do inform me of her behaviour during the mission. May the Force be with you.”

 

“Nervous, shiny?”, the one in yellow and black armour asked playfully.

“A bit. But probably not for the reason you think”, she admitted.

“If you are nervous about meeting us we can just do some quick introductions”, he went on, probably just trying to be helpful.

“I was given some of your reports to read, but your names don’t appear on those, so...”

“I’m Scorch”, he offered quickly. “That’s Fixer, the bossy one is Boss and the one that always looks grumpy and/or menacing is Sev.”

“Gotcha”, she nodded, hoping her brain wouldn’t betray her and she would forget all names in less than 0,5 seconds. “So. I’ve heard you are _la crème de la crème.”_

“Everything you have read is true, kid”, Sev said, kind of smugly, as he leaned on a wall.

Dani bit her lip. She couldn’t help it. It was going to end poorly for her but she COULDN’T.

“Oh, really?”, she started, already reaching into her backpack to take out her datapad. _Aw shit I’m really gonna mock a commando_ —“Because it says here that you are a bitch”, she blinked innocently, pointing at the text displayed.

The second that followed was composed by deathly, astonished silence; right before murder-intent flooded the room hand by hand with Scorch’s howls of laughter.

_Sssssshhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttttttt_

Ducky’s reaction to Sev lunging for her was to pop out of existence.

She barely dodged the barrelling commando, jaw trembling in a silent laugh as she made her way between supply crates, glancing back to make sure that Sev couldn’t see her leave. The sniper had recovered from smacking himself against a wall and was now looking around, not wildly, tho: there was focus on that action. He reached for his helmet and slipped it on, probably scrolling through the visor’s sensors.

“Just so it’s clear: it _really_ says so in the text!”, Dani piped up from behind a box in an attempt to avoid Sev’s wrath.

“Does it, now?”, he asked ignoring the discarded datapad, in a clear attempt to keep her talking so he could find her through her voice.

“I’m serious!”, she tried again, already taking the long route to circle back to her starting point as Sev moved to where she had spoken from.

_Damn he has good hearing_

“So am I”, he growled over Scorch’s laughter. “How the KRIFF are you doing that?!”

“This is kinda my thing”, she replied, thinking herself at a safe distance from him.

“Thought you were going for General, not assassin.”

“So you _have_ heard of me”, she smirked.

“Don’t let it go to your HEAD!”, he snarled.

Dani had been watching as he spoke, but she was still thankful for the heads-up the Force gave her: her eyes had barely registered the silver glittering of a vibroblade when her knees were already buckling. It darted barely three centimetres above her curls, a loud gasp escaping her lips as her cheek met the ground and the knife embed itself through a metal case.

“Gotcha!”

“Hey, hey, hey, Sev!”, Scorch wasn’t laughing anymore. “Cut the rookie some slack!”

“The rookie seems to have dodged my blade, so she’ll be alright!”

Luna wanted to snarl a reply, but she felt safer staying silent at the moment, and instead crawled towards the datapad on the floor as Scorch tried to de-escalate the situation.

“Come on, she’s just a kid! Just scold her or something, no need to decapitate somebody!”

“Maybe I rather the knife to the scolding”, she piped up, scrolling through the device.

Sev turned towards her voice, still switching his sensors, and walked over to her, his brother trying to hold him back rather unsuccessfully.

“Look!”, she jumped, raising the datapad towards his face. The Deltas only saw a floating datapad, but they managed to not let on how disturbing that was. “Second paragraph, third line!”

Grumbling, the sniper read the indicated section.

_\--while preparing the demolition charges, 07 was being a little bitch—_

Scorch slowly peeled himself off Sev’s back, the later stock still except for his finger scrolling down the report.

_\--by RC-1262_

“...Scoooooooorch!!!!!”, he growled in crescendo, turning around.

“Oh damn”, the other muttered, and took off running.

Sev followed immediately and Dani hurried to plaster herself against the wall, dropping her cloaking. She was watching the brothers chase each other with an amused smile when she noticed a presence, startling. Boss met her eyes and rose an eyebrow.

“So. Invisibility.”

“Yep”, she shrugged sheepishly. “And I can cloak other people, too”, she added, because maybe it was important he knew.

“You are also quite proficient in Force assisted mobility and an experimental form of healing, for what I have read.”

“Yes sir”, she nodded dutifully, but her eyes diverted in a surge of insecurity. “With also deficiencies in piloting, electronics and moving things with the Force.”

“Conscious of your weak spots. That’s good”, Boss nodded in approval, slowly walking to her and patting her shoulder with a loud slap. “Let’s see how you can help us, kid.”

 

They clustered in the cockpit for the debriefing. It was more laidback than the ones used for larger groups: Fixer was on the pilot seat and doing barely anything because they were already in hyperspace, Sev and Scorch were leaning on the wall or the co-pilot seat respectively, and only Boss was standing up. Dani stood too, because she was the new there and they were all her supervisors, so she wanted to show some respect. Turns out: Boss didn’t do the sit-rep as she expected. Instead, a hologram was invoked.

“Greetings, Deltas”, a standard looking clone piped up.

“Advisor”, Boss nodded. “What do you have for us?”

“You’re heading for a telecomm station in the S-7 quadrant. Important intel was to be transmitted from there, but the connection was lost 10 hours ago. Your mission is to recon the station, retrieve the data and blow it up.”

“Simple. I like it”, Sev commented.

“I like the last part. I’ll get the fireworks ready!”, Scorch said cheerfully, digging into his backpack and counting thermal detonators.

Or that was what Dani thought he was doing, before he started _juggling_ them.

“Oh FUCK please stop”, she blurted out hysterically, tense as a stick inside her armour.

“Who’s got a cold? Your voice is _very_ off”, Adviser said. “40?”

“I’m driving”, Fixer replied. “That would be our Jedi intern”, he added, pointing vaguely at her.

“Force-user intern”, she corrected.

“Oh. I wasn’t informed of this.”

“A last minute arranging”, Boss shrugged.

“Yeah, uhm, I’m gonna go full honest here”, Dani piped up, taking off her helmet to scratch at the back of her head nervously. “I may have pissed off an instructor and he is trying to get me killed because he thinks I’m trying to make him look bad, so, huh, yeah I guess I’m being sent out to see if he gets lucky and I die.”

Everybody turned to stare at her, thermal detonators falling on the floor and rolling away.

“What did you do?”, Sev asked suspiciously.

“Nothing! Just be very bad at piloting! Don’t let me take the controls, by the way”, she added in an afterthought.

“What else?”, the red-painted commando pressed.

Luna crossed her arms over her chest, pouting.

“...Perhaps I insinuated that he was an incompetent.”

“Was it Guino? Because if it’s Guino then you are right.”

“Scorch, don’t encourage her”, Boss sighed. “You’ll be staying on the ship”, he said, turning to Dani.

“Why?”

“So you don’t get killed.”

“But since I’m here, I might as well get some experience. That I have been sent here in hopes that I’ll die doesn’t mean I’m going to”, she countered.

“You’ll stay here, and that’s an order, _trooper_.”

“Yessir”, she replied immediately, being pretty obvious that she had other plans.

“I’ll contact you if anything else comes up”, Advisor said. “Good luck, Deltas.”

And he hung up.

“Luna”, Boss said in a warning tone.

“What?”

“You are going to stay here.”

“Yes. I thought that had already been stablished.”

She was standing with her hands behind her back in a polite posture, but her words weren’t convincing at all. But there was nothing they could do apart from arguing further, and that wasn’t going to be of any help, so they dismissed themselves and went on to make preparations for the mission.

Dani watched them from a respectful distance and made her own preparations.

 

“So, are you going to dock in the station?”

“No, if there’s someone inside they might have the hangar under surveillance”, Fixer was the one to reply as the Deltas double-checked the last arrangements. “It’s safer to leave our ship in orbit around it.”

Ducky frowned, because something wasn’t right—

“Are you gonna like. Jump?!”, she blurted, eyes wide in realisation.

They all gave her smug grins.

“I don’t know what’s worst: Scorch juggling with thermal detonators or you guys diving collectively into the void...”, she giggled nervously, and turned to leave.

“Luna”, Boss called out. “You’re staying.”

“I know, I know”, she nodded, putting her hands up in surrender and disappearing down the hallway, the door closing behind her after a couple of seconds.

“Alright, then, Deltas: ready for deployment.”

The commandos put on their helmets and sealed their suits before strapping on their respective equipment. Sev took the lead and punched the button to open the hatch: the metallic grey of the station and the black immensity of space behind it. Scorch rushed past Sev and spiralled into the void with an euphoric cry. The sniper shook his head and followed, also striking a cool pose, the dork. Boss glanced at Fixer, but he gestured for the leader to go first.

Instead of following, he stood there for a moment, watching his _vod’e_.

“Just for the record: I did feel you climb onto my backpack. Please don’t touch the antenna. I need it whole.”

And before Dani could voice her shock, he jumped.

She yelped in surprise and tightened her grip around his neck, also hooking her legs around his waist because it was totally not in her plans to meet her end in the coldness of space. Her heart took a frantic rhythm as she considered the possibility of her grip slipping and being lost in the dark immensity; but before fear could take over Fixer’s boots thumped and latched to the station’s surface, where Boss was reminding Scorch that they should wait for their technician and not blow the hatch up. Sev was standing guard. Ducky decided to stay cloaked and silent for the moment, only shifting slightly when he reached for tools.

“Got it”, he nodded barely two minutes later.

Scorch nodded back and grabbed the handle, glancing at Boss. The leader didn’t even have to wait for Sev to get in position, so he gave the permission to proceed. The hatch was yanked open and Sev jumped inside.

“Sector clear”, he stated through the comms.

Fixer jumped in, then Scorch, and finally Boss; who closed the hatch behind him.

“All accounted?”, Boss asked.

“Yes sir. All five of us”, Fixer deadpanned.

“As expected”, Sev grumbled.

Dani dropped her cloaking, still holding onto Fixer like a koala.

“Why the ‘that’s an order, trooper’ if you were going to be okay with me coming?”

“People often says that we clones are bad at lying, but damn: you’re the worst”, Scorch commented.

“You can let go now”, Fixer piped up.

Dani peeled herself off of him, unclipping her blaster from the back of her armour.

“I do know how to lie. Maybe I didn’t want to”, she shot back.

“That’s enough banter for the moment, Deltas”, Boss cut them. “We have a job to do. Sev and Scorch: go find the core and set the charges. Luna, Fixer and I will retrieve the data. Radio silence except for sit-reps. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yessir.”

“Copy.”

“Gotcha.”

And with that they split.

Dani focused on Boss’ and Fixer’s postures and way of moving, trying to mimic them every now and then. Their posture compared to hers was... way more alert and at the ready. It occurred to her then that they HAD to be ready for anything at any moment, because they could not feel Force-signatures or clusters of electricity. With that thought, she checked their surroundings.

And promptly activated the comm.

“Sev, Scorch: there’s about twenty hostiles between you and the core. They are not droids, I don’t have more details on species, but they seemed to be moving or posted in groups of five. There’s a lot of people clustered two floors up and at our 2, about thirty individuals; plus ten people per floor three floors up and down from us”, she reported, quite professionally.

“Copy that, but, uh, how much reliability does your intel have...?”, Scorch asked carefully.

“As clearly as I could feel you slipping Fixer’s rations into your backpack before”, she shot back with a huff.

The aforementioned patted a pouch on his belt.

“Scorch...!”

“I did not steal your rations, I just switched a couple! You ALWAYS get the purple packs and those are my favourite!”

“Keep the banter off the main channel”, Boss reminded, and switched to short range. “That wasn’t mentioned in your file, Luna.”

“Uhm. It comes naturally, so I haven’t really trained on that with Shaak Ti.”

“Now tell me honestly: how reliable is that skill?”

“It has never failed me”, she replied firmly.

“Copy”, Boss nodded. “Deltas, keep the intel provided by Luna in mind. Can you tell us if you notice unusual movements?”

“Will do”, she nodded.

They kept moving, but Dani refrained from mimicking the commandos again, instead focused on her own task.

“Hostiles confirmed”, Sev’s voice buzzed. “Engaging.”

“Copy. Make it quiet. Luna, any change on our situation?”

“No sudden moves that I am aware of.”

“Can you find us the better route?”

She startled a bit at that, because it stroke as a commanding decision. And, well, that kinda make sense because she would have to do a lot of these soon enough; but still, the fact that Boss was relying on her for something as important when they hadn’t known each other for more than a bunch of hours was... touching and frightening.

Still: it was logical, and she could do that. Hypervigilance was also her thing, after all.

“If you can spare five minutes so I can re-check patrol routes, then yes.”

“Do it”, the orange clad commando nodded.

So Dani spaced out and watched moving dots on her mind’s eye, counting seconds and glancing at Sev and Scorch every now and then.

“Got a path”, she finally announced.

“Take the lead”, Boss gestured.

And she might had hesitated at that; but she _knew_ the way.

Her pace was brisk and her movements incredibly light compared to the two commandos following her. They had to bite their tongues to not tell her to slow down, and when finally Fixer couldn’t take it anymore and reached to grip her shoulder she took a larger step and gestured for them to go faster, even tugging them only to immediately after hold them still. A bit unnerved but decided to give her a chance, the brothers staying silent. A squeal sounded down the hallway they had just hurriedly passed and Dani tilted her head at them in mild confusion.

They stayed in silence for a handful of seconds more, until Luna took her hands off their armour.

“Gamorreans”, Fixer informed her.

“That sounded like a pig”, she mused.

“What’s a ‘pig’?”

She was about to launch herself into a description of the animal in question and comment on how they were an important part of the meat industry, but she refrained of doing so.

“...It doesn’t really matter. For the mission”, she added.

“Let’s move, then”, Boss nudged her with the side of his blaster, and Dani snapped back into Force-sight. “Fixer?”

“Seems like we are taking the scenic route; but we are getting closer to the data banks room, if the schematics are right”, the technician glanced at the woman, but she just gave him a shrug.

“Don’t ask me: I’m just taking you to the place with more people avoiding all the others.”

“Do you have a visual on 07 and 62?”, Boss asked.

Luna went silent again, head turning minutely to stare into nothingness.

“They are killing people. There’s a bunch of hostiles closing on them but they are going to meet face first and they don’t feel like something they can’t handle.”

“How’s our route?”

“Barely six hostiles between us and our destination.”

“Copy. Fixer: take the lead. Luna: keep an eye on the others and make sure they don’t get overwhelmed. Get ready to engage in combat.”

“Yessir”, she nodded, checking her blaster before glancing through the Force-sight again. There were going to be plenty of compulsory checks in her near future, huh?

Trying not to think too much about the imminence of her first real battle ever, she followed behind Fixer with Boss covering up their rear. She thought of telling him that it was okay, that there was no-one behind them or close enough to hear them; but she supposed that was an habit that had kept them all alive, and would still do, once she left the squad.

Fixer started slowing down as they came closer to an intersection, and soon after signalled a halt with his fist. Dani came short of bumping into him, but maintained her balance. She tapped his shoulder before he could peek around the corner and lifted two fingers, spreading her other hand and pressing one to one side and the other opposite to it: _two guards, one on each side of the door at the end of the hallway_.

Fixer glanced at Boss to make sure he had gotten it too. The leader made a handful of consecutive signals. Luna had a bit of trouble keeping up, but managed to get the concept of the message: _you get the one on the left, I get the one on the right; you stay behind us, confrontation imminent, stick to me._

Was she being parented again? She was totally being parented again.

The sentinels were taken out with maximum efficiency, and the tiny group advanced to the doors. Boss started a countdown of three, a hand ready to open the door. Dani caught herself trying to make herself small behind him, and forced herself to quit it.

The door swished open and the shooting started.

At first, Luna just did as if she were on one of the hundreds of simulations she had already done. It was when she didn’t hear the ping of a shot impacting against metal, replaced by horrifying squeals that made her feel as if she were in a slaughterhouse; when her hands started shaking. She spaced out for a second: focus shattered by the screams and the falling of bodies. Then somebody called for her and she was pushed off balance by what could have perfectly been a car.

But it was not. It was a clone commando.

Startled, Ducky caught herself: physically and mentally. Her blasts actually hit their mark, blowing a gun out of someone’s hands and burning a neck to uselessness. She kept shooting, forcing the enemies still alive to back off. Only when it was safe, she turned to check on Boss. He was sporting a black scorch on a shoulder bell, but otherwise looked fine. His attention fell on her too, and she flinched.

“I—“, she started, meaning to excuse herself, or apologise, or...

“Focus. You recovered well”, he said, and got up, following behind Fixer. Dani stood up from her crouch too, taking a few quick steps to keep up with him. “Watch that door, I’ll watch this one.”

She came to a stop were she was, silent for a second.

“...I can see ALL of our surroundings”, she said carefully.

Her suggestion made Boss halt too; but it was evident in his pose that not standing watch felt incredibly wrong to him.

“...Come, but give us a heads up as soon as someone turns this way.”

“Yessir!”, she nodded curtly, and followed him to reunite with Fixer.

“How’s it going?”

“Tearing through firewalls. But I need some time”, the technician replied without looking away.

Dani blinked at his fingers, almost ghosting over keys and opening more and more tabs that she wouldn’t have ever found nor know they existed, with streams of data too fast for her to try to read.

“Wow”, she mused, deliberately focusing on Fixer and not the corpses around their feet. “How do you know what do you have to take?”

“How do you know what’s alive and what’s not when you do the ‘seeing without seeing thing’?”, he countered.

“I feel it.”

“Well, I don’t feel it; I just know it”, he shrugged minutely.

“Cool”, she hummed, a spark of genuine admiration in her voice that went over both commandos’ heads.

“Luna, check”, Boss reminded her.

“Yeah”, she replied automatically, eyes glassing inside the bucket. “Not yet heading towards us, but it seems like they are regrouping not far from here.”

“We’ll hold this position. Can you manage a door on your own?”

“I guess”, she shrugged awkwardly: because that she had done fine in training with droids didn’t meant she could be certain that she would hold against Gamorreans.

“Don’t worry too much about getting shot: these armours are the good stuff”, Fixer piped up.

“Get yourself some cover and duck if it gets bad. Try not to freeze again.”

“Yes, sir”, she mused with a tad of shame, and scurried off to drag some crates perpendicularly to the door. “Hostiles approaching, sir.”

“Take position! Fixer, watch your head there!”

“Yes, Boss”, the other waved him off, not really doing anything to protect himself to Dani’s dismay.

The Gamorreans were going for the sneaky approach, but that wasn’t going to work out well for them. Not this time, at least.

“Seven, six—“, she counted backwards, “—four, three, two, one...”

The noise of blaster fire and dying squeals engulfed them again. Ducky shot and shot, trying her best to deliver one-shots. The bodies started pilling up on the floor. It could have seemed that they were endless, but they weren’t. Suddenly there was no-one to shoot at, but she stayed in place, confused.

“Luna”, she heard one of the commandos call her. “Are more coming?”

And she blinked, and checked.

“...No”, she breathed out, slowly raising from her kneeling position. “I’m a bit dizzy”, she announced, shaking her head a bit. She felt exhausted, but not physically.

“Because it’s the first time you kill or because of Force stuff?”, Fixer asked, glancing at her over his shoulders.

“...Probably the first one”, she answered after a second of thinking. “I do the Force-sight thing very often and it usually doesn’t give me trouble...”

“Okay, I got what we need”, the technician said contently, pocketing a hard drive. “We’re done here.”

“Let’s head for the rendezvous point. Luna, you holding up over there?”

“Yeah”, she replied, edging closer to them. She looked a bit awkward, hidden away inside the commando armour with shoulders hunched and her tic of turning around at her waist a bit to check on her immediate surroundings every now and then.

“Scorch, Sev: we’re done. What’s your status?”, Boss spoke to his comm.

“Most charges set, Boss. We’re in the middle of an enemy wave, but Sev’s holding them off for now”, Scorch reported.

“Copy that, Delta. We’re coming to reinforce you”, he hang up without waiting for a reply. “Luna, enemies between us and them?”

“Some scattered groups of six or less; we may or may not cross paths with some of them.”

“Alright, then. Let’s move.”

 

“No.”

“Aw, come on, _vod_ ; just consider it!”, Scorch called over his shoulder, not pausing at reading another charge. “The four of us, plus our own very Jedi!”

“No”, Sev repeated, steadily shooting down hostiles.

“She _is_ a good asset”, the demolitions expert tried to argue rationally.

“No.”

“Now you are just afraid she is going to take your place, huh?”, he teased.

“If she were to stay with us”, the other said slowly, “she would have to train under Vau.”

The cheerfulness that had been surrounding Scorch died abruptly, a sense of unease settling between them as they went on with their chores.

“You’re right”, he admitted after a handful of seconds. “But if she didn’t. It would be nice, right? Having her around.”

It sounded like he was seeking some sort of comfort from the harsh reality Sev had slapped him with.

“Yeah”, he replied, and who knows: maybe what Scorch wanted to hear matched with what Sev thought. "Yeah, it would."

A Gamorrean screeched and fell dead to the floor without him pulling the trigger. And another, and another, and another. The pig-alike creatures found themselves in a crossfire and were slaughtered in less than two minutes. Three figures appeared around the corner.

“Sit-rep”, Boss said, walking towards them.

“Charges ready, fireworks in ten”, Scorch reported. “Hey, rookie. How’s it going?”

It took a couple of seconds for Dani to react as she startled into the present.

“Uh, not dead yet, so so far so good”, she shrugged, with a noticeable brief smirk in her voice.

“We’re done here, Deltas. Let’s head out.”

That was enough for all of them to set off running behind the leader.

“Luna, situation?”

“Enemies gathering in levels above and below us; just a couple patrols in our floor, but we don’t seem to be in a collision course with them.”

“Report if that changes.”

“Yessir!”

They eventually encountered a closed door. Fixer went immediately to the panel beside it, so Dani bit her lip and did her best to keep calm and wave away any thought related to time running out and dying by their own bombs. Before her anxiety grew too much to stay silent, though, the door hissed open and they were able to be on their way.

_It’s okay, they got this, we got this_

Another closed door.

Another, another.

“I think there’s some kind of automatic security protocol being activated”, Fixer mused as he opened the fourth door.

“No alarm”, Sev noted.

“And yet”, the other shrugged.

“We still have time, right?”, Dani couldn’t help finally asking.

“Yeah, we’re almost there. Will even have time to make a narrow scape and look cool by not turning to see the explosion”, Scorch replied cheerfully.

Luna huffed a smile under the helmet, a bit more at ease.

The door opened and they were on the run again.

Another turn, another corridor, another closed door. But there was something weird about that one. It was partially open, leaving a narrow gap in the middle. Fixer rushed to the panel, but his movements were off, way different from the confidence they had had mere minutes ago.

“ _Kriff!_ ”, he snarled. “The panel’s busted. We’re going to have to find another way around—”

“Or I could just blow the door up—”

“Setting the charge will take as long as circling if we start moving now—”

“There’s a panel on the other side, right?”, Dani asked quietly.

“Yeah”, Fixer replied, his focus falling on the quietest of voices.

“Gather up, Deltas: we gotta move—“, Boss started, but fell silent when he recognised the sound of unclipping armour.

Ducky’s chest plate clattered loudly on the floor, followed by her helmet and thigh protectors.

“WHAT _THE KRIFF_ DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!”, Sev howled. “PUT YOUR ARMOUR BACK ON RIGHT NOW, TROOPER!”

But Dani slithered past him and towards the gap of the door, turning her body to stick a leg past it, her face turned to them.

“Ex-SQUEEEEEEEEEZE me!”, she said, and with a steady force, slipped past the gap with a final tug. “Okay, this panel seems to be fine. How do I open the door?”

“Squared green button, slide vertical white streak to the right and press it”, Fixer replied quickly.

Dani hurried to follow his instructions, and was rewarded with the swish of the door opening.

She was just starting to smile in glad excitement when Boss and Scorch barrelled straight for her and lifted her by the arms as Fixer and Sev picked up the discarded armour. While running, the helmet was slammed on her head and the chest plate pressed against her body.

“Hold tight!”, Boss called right before Scorch let go of her, and she hurried to wrap her arms and legs around his torso as the Deltas jumped into the void.

They fell roughly in their ship. Sev and Fixer rushed to the cockpit as Scorch pushed Boss, and by extension Dani deeper into the shuttle. She looked over her shoulder, catching a last glance of the space station before the ramp shut behind them. The hum of the engine resonated around them, and they stumbled as they sped out of there.

Luna untangled herself carefully from Boss and stepped back, a little shaky.

The commandos took off their helmets, and so did she, taking in a steadying breath before meeting Boss’ eyes.

“Good work, Delta.”

 

She got pats on the shoulders and back all the way back to Kamino.

“I _can’t_ believe you actually slipped through the door!”, Scorch said yet again, shaking his head.

“Benefits of being buff, but not too much”, she answered sheepishly, as they walked down the ramp and into the landing platform, in a surprisingly-not-raining Kaminoan night.

“But don’t you ever take off your armour in the field unless absolutely necessary kid. That’s basic regulations and procedure”, Boss reminded her.

“Yes, sir”, she replied calmly with a tiny smile. “I’ll miss the commando armour, though. It is very cool.”

“If you ever want to tag along, we’ll be keeping the spares”, Fixer shrugged.

“Cool.”

She was about to made a comment about thinking of painting it, but she smacked her face against Sev’s back.

“Auch! What—?”

But the three other Deltas tensed around her, so she shut up and tried to see over his shoulder what had them reacting that way.

Someone clad in black armour was standing by the entrance. Next to their feet, a weird lizard-dog like creature showed it’s pointy teeth.

“Who’s that?”, she asked quietly out of habit before reaching with the Force.

“Our trainer”, Boss replied.

But by then, Dani had an answer of her own.

She smacked the back of her hand against Fixer’s thigh to get his attention.

“That”, she said lowly, gesturing at the armoured person with her head. “is a pig”, she snarled.

“What do you have there, men?”, a male voice called out as he uncrossed his arms and walked towards them, the creature walking with him.

“This is Dani Luna, sir”, Boss replied, walking up to him. “She was assigned to us in our latest mission as a part of her training.”

“They made you babysit a Jedi without telling me?”, he grumbled, looking down at her.

Dani was glaring daggers at him, feeling every inch of wickedness inside him, but decided against answering, instead crossing her arms.

“I don’t really like the Jedi, you see”, he continued.

The commandos were tense, hesitating.

“Sir—“, Fixer tried.

“I have very low tolerance for them.”

“Just like I already have 0 tolerance for your bullshit”, she spat.

Without the rain, the silence that followed was deathly.

“Lord Mirdalan”, he growled. “ _Ram’or.”_

The beast trembled and Dani popped out of existence by instinct, dashing away from the Deltas. The animal seemed confused at first, but it rose its nose and suddenly it was galloping after her.

_Oh fuck is it smelling me??!!_

She ran over to the piled crates and jumped on it. Mir jumped against the wall those created, claws leaving deep gouges in the metal as its jaws snapped and it tried again and again to jump and reach her.

“Impressive, Jedi!”, Walon mocked. “But not impressive enough!”

A wave of rage flooded her and sloshed inside her, reverberating.

She hated him. Hated him because of the hate he held inside. The hate he had taken out in the form of abuse. Abuse towards clones.

Towards family.

 _I’m gonna give you ‘impressive’_ , a terrifying part of her snarled.

And she reached a hand towards the animal, and it started levitating. At first that caused excitement to the beast, since it was getting closer to its pray. But then it started gurgling: not as if it were choking, no: as if its insides were being turned into a pulp and mixed.

“Wait”, she distantly heard. “Wait, wait, what are you doing?! STOP!”

“YOU weren’t going to stop!”, she screeched.

And Lord Mirdalan kept thrashing, blood dripping out of its jaws.

“Luna!”, a female voice washed over them, and immediately the animal was released and fell to the floor, hacking.

Dani’s cloaking fell, revealing her crouched form over the crates as she blinked at Shaak Ti.

“Walon”, she continued. “I hope you have a good explanation as to why your pet was attacking my student.”

“She—”

“I don’t want to hear it now”, she cut him. “I just came to pick her up. I’ll deal with you later. Dani: let’s go.”

She slowly jumped off the crates and walked over to her, her shoulder slouched and visibly tired with the whole ordeal. She gave an awkward wave to the Deltas and lowered her gaze in shame, allowing Shaak Ti to hide her beneath her tunic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, lying awake at night: I MUST save Ponds


	38. Fett

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't @me if the chronology is wrong, I don't careeee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS I FOUND THE VERY ESSENCE OF DUCKY IN A TIK TOK  
> It's posted on my Tumblr tagged as "Ducky material" and "Dani Luna", minute 2:35, that's MY GIRL!!!!

“The Jedi Council invokes you, Luna.”

“Tell them I’m busy”, she replied quickly, a streak of stress clear in her voice as the Admiral watched her move around her room through the holoprojection, gathering papers and scribbling rapidly on them just to abandon them in a chaotic pile. Commander Ian shot a hand to keep the pile steady while still reading something on a datapad and scratching Grey’s head with his free hand.

“I am passing you through, Luna”, Kasta warned, his tone barely interested, as always.

“KASTA, NO—”

“General Luna. Your assistance, we need”, Yoda’s even tinier figure was now projected on Dani’s desk.

“With what? As I was just telling my Admiral: I’m in the middle of planning an incursion, so unless it’s really important—”

“A Star Cruiser, down is. Near the crashing system, you are. Skywalker and Windu there were, and checking the wreckage for survivors there are now. Your help to retrieve escape pods and give first aid, we need.”

Luna slammed the papers she had gathered down beside the projector, because okay: that didn’t seem like too much trouble and Dogma could totally handle that.

“Where they attacked?”

“Few details, we have. A sabotage, looks like it may have been.”

“So the saboteur might be in one of the escape pods.”

“Or the wreckage”, Yoda hummed. “Against Windu’s life, an attempt appears to have been made.”

“Hm”, Luna huffed, face going blank. “Does he have a lot of enemies?”

“The Jedi way, revenge is not”, he replied, contributing to absolutely nothing.

“Okay”, she deadpanned, putting a stop to any Jedi wisdom that may have been

about to be delivered. “We’ll take a look.”

“We’re putting this on halt, then?”, Ian gestured to the papers.

“Yeah, we have made good progress: we can pass what we have to Laa’ka and let’s see what he thinks about it—”

“I’m going to tell Kasta about our destination”, the Commander announced, getting up to pick up his wristcomm and clip in back in place. “Do I ready search squads too?”

“Yeah, sure”, she nodded, pocketing her switchblade before letting the satchel slip to the floor. “Gotta pee, see you at the hangar in ten?”

“Sure, sir”, Ian nodded, and headed out.

Dani picked up her phone and went to do unspeakable things.

In the mess they had left behind, Grey looked around, suddenly alone. She meowed in disappointment and started to head for the door, intending to pass some time in The Greenhouse or The Underbelly, but movement caught her attention and her ears twitched as she turned around.

The ball, that deliciously bright, pink ball rolled on the floor unprompted, and the loth cat dived for it with an excited wiggle. The ball avoided her claws by mere hairs, but Grey was having the time of her life, so she kept chasing it.

It disappeared into the dark of the satchel, and she followed suit.

 

“Sir: the critically wounded are being transferred to a medical station by a medical frigate; non-critically injured and fit personal are inbound”, Dogma informed her, wearing his full armour.

The now black paint of his design hid his visor and gave him a sombre look, but it made him look cool as fuck.

“Cool: I’m gonna head down to Vanqor with the search teams, do you want to coordinate stuff around here or tag along?”

“If you are in need of assistance, sir”, he kinda shrugged.

“Go with her”, Ian piped up, clapping his back as he walked up to them. “It’s about time you learn to deal with her bullshit without supervision.”

“Hey!”, Dani protested with a mischievous smile.

Whatever follow-up she might had had in store was drowned by the noise of escape pods and retrieval shuttles entering the hangar. The three commanding officers watched them land out of anything left to do, since they were either waiting to listen to the needs of the newcomers or waiting for the transports to be ready.

“General!”, a young voice called suddenly. A voice _too_ young for Dani’s comfort.

They watched a blue-clad cadet run up to them, two more following him.

“General!”, he repeated, panting. “I have something very important to report!”

“What’s your name?”

“Jax, sir.”

“We’re listening, Jax”, she encouraged despite herself.

“Sir, the saboteur was a clone cadet! He said his name was Lucky, but then a strange ship docked our escape pod, and there was a woman inside and she said his name was Boba!”

Ducky’s hand flew to grasp at Ian’s arm as she started at Jax wide-eyed.

“Boba”, she mused, turning her head to look at her Commander. “Boba Fett.”

And before anyone could add anything else she ran off, her satchel dragged behind her.

“Pedal! Pedal, take a two-passengers, I wanna get down there now!”

“General!”, Dogma uselessly tried to reach for her, and instead turned to Ian.

“No, no, don’t look at me: now you decide. My only advise is: worry only if she disappears without a word.”

 

“General Luna”, Dogma called into his wristcomm once he landed with a squadron.

“Hi”, she replied quietly.

“What’s your status?”

“I... felt some stray life forms around here. Some of them are what looks like fairly big predators, so make sure to keep and eye out and that everyone is covered.”

“Copy that, sir. Do you need assistance?”

“I may be into something, but focus on searching the wreckage for now. I know Anakin and Windu are in there, maybe you can meet up. I’ll follow my lead a bit more and report back with my next move. Pedal is waiting in our ship, he is to wait for me but you can comm him if something comes up. Keep your eyes open.”

“A cold mind, and a warm heart”, Dogma completed, and she couldn’t help but smile warmly as he hung up.

Ducky turned to watch the burning Cruiser for a moment. She really hoped _The Unruly_ would never end up like that.

An explosion in the command bridge flashed in front of her eyes, and she gasped tightly.

“Dogma, did you see that? What’s your status?!”

“We’re fine, General: about to go in. We’ll take extra precautions.”

“Keep an eye open for the Jedi: I’m too far to sense them, but if they were ahead of you...”

“Copy that, General. Captain Dogma out.”

Dani took a long breath to steady her thrumming heart and nearly overwhelming need to go back to her men to join them in their search. But another need tugged at her very being: the presence of three familiar (but not known) living Forces, plus four completely unknown ones and the predators crawling around. Cloaked since the moment she jumped out of the transport, she readjusted her satchel and walked uphill, towards some boulders to giver herself extra cover. She heard voices arguing and jogged the last few meters, a hidden ship coming to view.

“I wanna make sure he is dead!”, the painfully young voice she had heard from Aleluia and Jax said angrily.

“We can’t”, a voice that Luna would feel comfortable punching hissed. “The plassssse issss crawling with clonesssss...”

“What do you mean? Let me see!”, a woman snarled, taking the binoculars of him and the thought _oh no she’s hot_ crossed Dani’s mind. “Bossk is right. They have sent a search squad.”

“We can take them!”, Boba insisted.

“No, no we can’t.”

“Castas’ right, Boba. It’s not worth the risk.”

“But—”

“We’ll just blast the bridge to pieces. Load the hostages, we’re leaving.”

As if the order had been directed to her, Ducky trotted over, thoughts running as she took stock of her situation as anxiety creeped at her: do you act now? Or do you wait for a better chance that might never present itself?

Before she could decide, another explosion sounded in the distance.

“What was that?”

“The ssscaners picked up an explosssion near were the Jedi landed, Aurra.”

“Windu!”

“Jam any communications off this planet!”

_Ah, so you are the one in charge..._

And then the bounty hunters were moving.

_Ah, shit!_

“Pedal!”, she whispered into her wristcomm. “I’m about to cheat on you! Tail me only if you are absolutely sure that my ride can’t detect you!”

“I thought what we had was special...!”, he sighed dramatically, but quickly sobered up. “I have your back, sir. Going radio silent until further notice or three rotations pass.”

She quickly changed channels:

“Dogma, something has come up, contact Pedal for the details”, she said in a rush, and turned off her comms before slipping inside the ship.

 

The 0th‘s Captain blinked at his comm in mute astonishment. He _knew_ Generals could be called off at any moment, but Luna was following a lead and suddenly she was leaving AND turning off her comm?

But she had warned him that she was going on her own, so by Ian’s advice, he had nothing to worry about.

So Dogma took a steadying breath and reassured himself that yeah: he could totally carry on on his own; he had the field experience and everybody was already on alert in case the predators Dani had mentioned showed up.

So, next step?

He was about to call Pedal when the whistling of a panicking droid reached him and his group. Everybody raised their blasters towards the source as a white and blue astrodroid skidded past them gesturing wildly. What without any doubt was a predator appeared right behind it, and Dogma didn’t even need to give the order to shoot it down. The beast fell dead.

They shot it some more. Just in case.

The droid kept whistling and gesturing and it was really getting a bit annoying.

“Wait”, he hummed in a spark of recognition. “Aren’t you General Skywalker’s astrodroid?”

It whistled in excited affirmative.

“Do you know where he is?”

Even more excited whistling and beeping, now with a streak of urgency as it spun in circles.

“Take us there.”

They tried. They really, really tried, but the level of destruction inside the downed Star Cruiser was too grate.

“Captain, do we press on?”, a trooper asked almost desperately right after a chunk of ceiling fell right beside them.

“...No”, Dogma decided. No: he wouldn’t be like Krell. He wouldn’t send his men to their death. “No: we’re not well equipped for this. Everybody fall back, we are calling in the Wolfpack!”

 

“One of the Jedi ships is missing”, Castas mused.

“NO!”

“If even one of them has escaped, they’ll bring reinforcements”, Aurra hummed. “Turn around, Bossk. Let’s leave this rock.”

“But—! What about Windu!”, Boba protested.

“If he is still alive, we may have use for our hostages...”

Dani softly patted the pocket that contained her switchblade, and pressed herself further into the corner of the cockpit.

 

She busied herself watching Boba. He looked... uncomfortable, but she didn’t want to jump to conclusions since, in the end, they didn’t know each other at all. Fett wasn’t Aleluia, that was for sure. How was she going to approach him when the moment came? Luna had a few ideas, but knew all of it would depend on the kid’s reaction.

Dani startled out of her thoughts when Boba stood up, and she hurried to follow him where the hostages were being held. She took a good look at them: if she was correct, that there was Commander Ponds, an Admiral who she didn’t know the name of, and another clone officer that she didn’t know either. Their restraints seemed... extremely lax and ineffective, but non of them seemed to be doing any moves to escape, she noted, leaning to watch their backs. Maybe they had been injured in the crash?

“This isn’t what I wanted”, Boba confessed quietly, and Dani turned to him, a relieved smile tugging at her lips.

She could have tried to talk to him now: but that meant Boba was not a threat, or at least wouldn’t be if treated correctly, so she better save the surprise factor for the other bounty hunters.

“I know a good soldier when I see one”, the Admiral went on with their conversation, and Dani glared daggers at him.

“I’m no solider!”

_Yeah, you tell ‘em, Boba!_

“I’m no clone, not like those two! What?! What are you looking at?!”

And Dani was already reaching to grab his arm as he made his way to the unknown officer, but the door opened with a whip and she jerked back.

“Boba! What’s going on?”, Aurra asked.

“Nothing”, he said, stepping back. “What are we going to do with them?”

“Oh, I think they are about to prove useful...”, she purred dangerously, leaning over the Admiral.

Ducky winced at the first punch and tensed up, but managed to keep herself still. To say the truth: it wasn’t a drama that she was beating the shit out of the Admiral. At least, not to her. She spared a glance at Boba.

Oh, Force, he looked so... Sad. Guilty. Uncomfortable.

But it was still not the moment. It was not.

 

Shortly after they brought in a recorder, and Boba and Aurra drew their blasters. Dani tensed back up, lowering her satchel into a corner; switchblade at the ready. When Boba aimed at Ponds head, her stomach lurched.

_Please don’t do it. Please, please, please don’t make me do it_

“What’s your name?”, Aurra snarled, and kicked the Commander when he didn’t reply. “Name!”

Luna moved closer.

“Boba, do it.”

Closer.

“Boba!”, the bounty hunter repeated, because he wasn’t acting.

But he couldn’t. Thanks the Force, he couldn’t.

And then it was Aurra who was pointing at Ponds’ head.

Dani kicked the blaster off her hand, breaking her wrist with the might of her favourite black and red boots. The stray shot made the recorder explode. The woman cried out in pain and Boba took a step back, eyes wide in surprise and darting between Sing and her broken limb.

“What wasss that?”, Bossk hissed, blaster in hand.

“There’s someone here! Kill the hostages!”, she snarled in pain.

The other didn’t hesitate for even a second, but Dani acted even faster and the bolt dissipated against a Force-shield, leaving the hostages safe within a protective bubble.

“JEDI!!!”, Aurra roared in recognition.

Ducky kicked Bossk in the crotch before twisting his arm to make him drop the gun. It clattered to the floor and she kicked it out of Aurra’s reach, who had dived for it. She swung her arms around, probably trying to catch Luna’s ankle, but she stepped back and let her weight drop to stab her good hand.

She cried out again as blood started bubbling and Dani pulled the blade out. Bossk was regaining his balance against a wall, so she kicked him behind the knee to make him fall again.

“What’s going—?”, Castas appeared from the cockpit with his own blaster in hand, and got a VERY solid punch to the jaw for it.

“Boba, DO SOMETHING!!!”, Sing howled at the frozen child.

He rose his weapon, eyes still wide in fear, not really knowing where to aim.

With the three adult bounty hunters gathered up, she decided it was time to subdue them.

With a motion that required her whole body, the bubble protecting the hostages inverted itself, trapping the mercenaries against a wall.

“Boba, the hostages!”, she snarled, and he turned to them on instinct, eyes widening even more—

“Boba”, Dani said, softer. He startled and pointed his blaster towards the source of her voice. “It’s okay. I don’t want to hurt you. I’m gonna let you see me now, okay? It’s alright”, she kept reassuring him as she slowly slipped into existence. She was down to one knee, face turned to him and hands held in front of her body, keeping the Force-shield in place. She dropped the bloody knife in an afterthought.

“Kill her!!!”, Bossk snarled.

Fett straightened.

“You didn’t want to kill them”, she continued, voice even and calm. “You don’t want this. So tell me: what do you want to do? What do you want me to do?”

They held each other gazes. The tension in the room was so thick it was getting hard to breathe.

“...I want to land”, he said quietly, lowering his blaster.

“BOBA!”, Aurra snarled.

“Hey, quit yelling at him!”, Dani snarled back. “I’ve only known you since we took off and I’m already fed up!”, she huffed, and proceeded to ignore the blue streak of swearing that followed, slowly lowering her hands, making sure the Force-shield held steady before turning back to Boba. “I’m shit at piloting. Can you drive?”

“...Yeah”, he nodded, fingers twitching around his blaster. “I think... I think Florrum is the closest planet.”

“We can go there, then”, she nodded.

There was a change in the bounty hunters’ mood: an arrogant anticipation, so she would have to be careful when they landed.

“What... what are you going to do with them?”, he asked, a bit fearfully.

“I was thinking of locking them in another room, if there’s any? What do you think?”

Boba frowned.

“I... Yes, that’s good.”

“You can say it if you have another idea, you know?”, she encouraged lightly.

“Why does it matter what I might think?”, he snapped, “You are the one that just subdued three mercenaries, that can turn invisible and kill us all at any moment! So why ASK me?”

Dani blinked at him, surprised.

“Because as I said: this is not what you wanted. I want to know what do you want and help you if I can.”

“Liar! You want the hostages!”

“That too”, she shrugged.

“And once we land, what? We’ll get arrested!”

“I’m not here to arrest anyone. I’m a General, not a cop”, she huffed. “No, wait: I’m Internal Affairs, so that makes me... A cop’s cop...?”, she realised. “The point is: I just gotta grab them and leave”, she summarised, pointing at the hostages, “I don’t care about you guys, as long as you don’t bother me. Now: do you mind pointing me to another room?”

 

Boba did lead her to another space deeper in the ship. They locked the bounty hunters there and went to the cockpit, Dani saying a quick _I’ll be with you in a moment_ before helping Boba change course.

“Do you mind if I go check on the hostages? I feel the mighty need to untie them. That can’t be comfortable.”

“...What if they attack me? I helped capture them”, Boba mused, eyes down.

“Stay near me. I won’t let them hurt you”, she said on instinct.

The young Fett looked up, staring into her soul with wide eyes.

“You would do that for me?”

“Of course. I’m not letting anyone hit a child”, she half snarled, and stood up, waiting for him.

He stood up too, her stance a little more at ease now. He had holstered his blaster, and was surprised that she hadn’t asked him to give it over. It made him feel safe, knowing that he could defend himself if the mysterious woman turned on him suddenly.

They stepped into the next room and Dani picked up her discarded switchblade, walking over the three men.

“Sorry for the wait”, she said sheepishly, and pulled Ponds’ gag off before moving to cut his restraints. The Commander let out a grunt and sagged, muscles sore. She put a hand on his chest to steady him and guided him to rest against the wall before reaching for her satchel and dragging it over. She stuck her hand inside without really looking and made a really, REALLY weird face. Her hand grasped something and pulled it out.

“Grey!”, she yelped. “When did you get in there?!”

The loth cat meowed innocently, her pink ball held tightly between her paws.

“Uh...”, she looked around, not really knowing what to do with her at the moment, but her gaze fell on the child in the room. “Hey, Boba! Do you like tookas? This is Grey, she must have sneaked into my bag when I was getting ready to come... Do you want to hold her?”

“I... Okay”, he doubted for a second, and stepped forwards.

Dani passed him the animal and he sat down on the floor, petting her gently. Grey purred and curled on his lap. Luna set to untie the other two and pulled out a couple of canteens and the energy bars she had picked up, offering them to the exhausted men.

“Are you guys injured?”, she asked softly, taking a once over through the Force.

“Just some bumps and scratches, General. We’re fine, thank you”, the Admiral said.

“Hm”, she hummed, but passed them some healing energy anyways. “I’m afraid I only know Commander Ponds’ name, here.”

“I am Admiral Kilian”, the old man presented himself, and Dani’s gaze suddenly bore into his soul. But before he could really process the change, she blinked, and the emotion was gone. She turned to the unknown clone before he could comment on it.

“I’m Naval Officer Steer, sir”, he said was hesitation.

“Nice meeting you”, she flashed him a smile. “I’m Dani Luna of the 0th. We were sent to search the wreckage of your Star Cruiser and I sensed your presences, so I sneaked on board. One of my pilots should be following us, so we’ll get pick up soon, I guess.”

“Good news”, Kilian hummed, distractedly rubbing his wrists. “What about the young Fett and the bounty hunters?”

“What about them?”

“We can’t just let them go! They kidnapped us!”

Dani blinked at him, giving a _you are pissing me off_ vibe.

“As I already said: I’m not here to arrest anyone.”

“Kidnapping of GAR officers is a serious crime—“, the Admiral kept arguing, and Dani made no attempt to hide the rolling of her eyes. “—and he must face the consequences like a soldier! He should be locked with the others, too!”

Now her gaze was fulminating.

She stood up between the sitting men and the now backing away boy like an unmovable object.

“Boba is a kid, not a soldier”, she snarled lowly. “He WON’T be judged like an adult.”

“He is a clone.”

“I fail to see your point.”

“Clones his age are legally adults!”

“He is not”, she crossed her arms, looking down at him with an impassivity of granite.

“You will leave a child alone in the galaxy, then?”

“...No.”

“Then—”

“Do you have someone to stay with, Boba? Aurra, or somebody else?”, she asked softly, turning to him.

He looked down.

“I don’t need anybody”, he grumbled, hugging Grey tighter against his chest.

 _Right_ , Ducky abstained from saying, and instead glanced at the three men to gauge their reactions.

Kilian still seemed obstinate with the arresting thingy, Steer just seemed too uncomfortable to find something to say, and Ponds...

Ponds was watching Boba with eyes so sad that Dani could have cried. And she probably would have if she had her period. She nudged his feet lightly and he looked at her right away.

Luna glanced at Boba before crouching next to the Commander.

“Would you stay with him?”, she whispered.

His eyes widened and he blinked at her, as if he couldn’t believe the words that just came out of her mouth.

“You don’t have to answer now, I know I’m asking for a lot and there’s much to consider. Just... think about it, okay?”, she shrugged minutely with a faint smile and soft eyes.

 

Soon enough they arrived on Florrum, landing near what seemed to be a camp. Dani picked up Aurra’s blaster and threw it inside her satchel, deciding to let Boba hold Grey a bit longer. The loth cat seemed to be having the time of her life, pawing at the kid and giving excited meows, which earned her even more petting. She walked closer to scratch her too, because _don’t forget me bitch, I love you too_.

“We’re dumping you here!”, she announced, banging on the door where the bounty hunters were locked. “We can do this the civilized way: meaning you walk in front of us and go your way; or the other way: in which you also walk in front of us and if you do something weird I go invisible again and murder you all. What will it be?”

A chorus of grumbled and hisses on the other side.

“The first one”, Aurra replied angrily.

Luna gestured for the three adults and the child to take a step back in the opposite direction of the exit and she opened the door before taking a step back too. Sing glared at her quite intensely, but when she turned around to walk away Dani felt again that spike of anticipation. She rose an eyebrow and made a quick check of their surroundings, lightly patting her bag to feel her lightsaber.

She really hoped she didn’t have to use it. Wouldn’t do good to turn that on in front of a traumatized child.

There were plenty of sentients in the camp: roughed up presences, not plainly evil; but there was a malicious aura to them. And walking in their midst and heading for them, an essence she recognised.

“Hondo!”, Aurra howled suddenly, “KILL HER!”

The bounty hunter rolled to a side, and so did her partners. The pirate’s hand went to his weapon as his eyes darted over the newcomers. The clones and the Admiral tensed behind her, fingers itching for blasters they did not have.

So what if Boba was specially protected and hidden by the positions they had taken?

“Luna!!!”, the pirate laughed loudly, spreading his hands in the air dramatically as he kept walking to them.

“Hondo”, Dani nodded back. “Didn’t expect to meet you here. Or anywhere”, she continued nonchalantly.

“Can’t a man and his crew take a free week? Or month?”, he smirked.

“Whatever. We’re waiting for pickup, mind if we come in?”

“The bar is open to whoever has money”, he gestured to the far-away entrance behind him.

“Cool. Let’s take a sit”, she gestured to her companions. “We still have things to talk about and I rather just sit and relax.”

As they passed by, she gave a shit-eating grin to Aurra.

“Why didn’t you kill her?!”, she hissed at Ohnaka.

“Oh, it’s nothing personal dear, you know: it’s bad for business to shoot and your clients”, he winked, offering her a hand.

She swatted it away.

“You work for HER?!”

“I have a long term contract with Miss Luna, yes. She pays well.”

“Are you AWARE she is a General of the Republic?”, she snarled, now standing up.

“In ways you can’t even imagine”, he muttered darkly.

“Then why didn’t you just turn down her offer?!”

“Because I rather be in her payroll than dead”, he growled lowly. Aurra’s eyes went wide at his admission, but before her brain could form a response or a question, his features and tone cheered up again. “But I’d say our relationship is getting quite better now! We just started on the wrong foot”, he added, patting her shoulder. “I don’t think she’ll mind if you come in for a drink too, but listen to me carefully...”, he made a pause to make sure he had her attention. Sing did not avert her eyes from him. “You are a dangerous woman. But so is she.”

 

The pirates stared as they walked past and inside the bar. Dani encouraged the three adults to order a drink if they wanted, as long as they watched through the whole preparation.

With them somewhat settled, she asked Boba for a private conversation.

“How are you feeling?”, she asked softly, taking a bag of cat treats from her bag and placing them on the table so they could feed Grey together.

“I’m... I’m glad nobody had to die”, he admitted quietly, offering a treat to the loth cat.

“Me too”, Ducky smiled, resting her cheek against a fist.

They stayed quiet for some time, both thinking about what to say. It was weird for both of them: Boba was sitting in front of a General, a _Jedi_ , who had subdued his crew in two minutes flat but had refused to hurt him, even letting him keep his weapon and offering protection in case her men showed themselves hostile towards him AND trusting him her loth cat.

He wouldn’t admit it, but that last gesture meant a lot to him.

On the other hand, Dani was sitting in front of her cousin (all clones that looked about her age or younger were cousins, not uncles. Rules of the house): who had lost his father just as she had lost her mother. Not only that, but he was the son of the most notorious bounty hunter in the galaxy, for what Ian had told her. Boba _was_ a kid, but she was pretty sure he was already more badass than Jango had ever been at his age.

Still.

“Listen, I don’t want to mother you, but...”, she began slowly, gauging his reaction. He looked up at her and pouted a bit, but not enough to scare her and make her stop. “...I would really feel better if I knew you have someone to stay with.”

“I don’t need anybody”, he repeated.

“Yes, I know, really, but still...”, she gestured with her hands a bit, giving a sympathetic, broken smile, trying to get him to understand her feelings about the situation.

It did seem to work a bit: at first he frowned at her hands, but then he looked down in thought.

“There’s Bane”, he said after a pause. “Aurra. Maybe Embo, or Sugi... Or maybe I could join Hondo for a while.”

“I have the feeling you are just listing names to make me feel better”, she blinked at him with brutal honesty.

He blinked back, his eyes turning surprisingly sharp.

“You aren’t as naive as many Jedis...”

“I’m not a Jedi”, she sighed, tired of having to explain.

“Don’t lie to me: I _saw_ you use the Force!”

“Still not a Jedi”, she shook her head with a smug smile. “But that’s not the point right now”, she paused and leaned forwards over the table. “Are you officially a bounty hunter, Boba? Or were you just tagging along?”

“I AM a bounty hunter!”, he snarled as he slammed his fist against the table, ready to defend his honour—

“What if I hired you?”

He actually startled at that, and stood very still for a moment before settling down on his seat.

“...To do what?”

“Intel gathering? You can never have too many informants, and I lack people in the underworld. Hondo is not the most discreet of men and I like to have all the ranges covered”, Dani shrugged.

Boba squinted at her, eyes darting as he studied her.

“And the payment?”

“How much for a monthly quota?”

“15.000 credits.”

“Damn kid, you ain’t cheap”, she rose an eyebrow in amusement.

“Take it or leave it”, he replied, crossing his arms and even raising his chin a bit.

“I’ll pay you 25.000 and you have to drop whatever else you have going on if I call you.”

“Double it or nothing.”

At that Dani did glare at him.

“25.000 credits monthly, and if we ever meet up I’ll bring Grey with me”, she gestured to the tooka in question.

He startled and glanced at the animal.

“Yeah: sorry, kiddo, but I can’t let you keep her. She’s got an important role back at the ship”, she explained softly, stroking her back. “But hey, with the amount of money I will be paying you I’m sure you’ll get your own loth cat, and the next time we meet Grey will have a friend to ply with.”

Boba’s sadness at the realization that he would be separated from his new friend was devastating. He reached out to pick up Grey and placed her on his lap, hugging her and stroking her head.

“So. Will you take the job?”

He kept stroking Grey for a few moments more.

“I will.”

“Great”, Luna beamed. “Do you want a formal contract?”

“Nah, I’ll just pass you a bank account. The less proof of the deal, the better.”

“True”, she nodded. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Boba Fett”, Dani offered a hand.

Boba eyes it for a moment before deciding that there was no danger to it, and shook it.

“It will be a pleasure collecting from you”, he smirked.

She let out a light laugh and shook her head, still smiling.

“I’m going to check on my men. My pickup should be here soon. Are you staying around some more?”

“Never leave before the client”, he shrugged, as if it were obvious.

Dani tilted her head at that, but chose not to ask, still leaving Grey with him as she walked to the GAR officers. Hando had sat down with them and was telling a story loudly, a jar of something that looked a bit like beer spilling out at his wide gestures.

“Ah, Luna!”, the pirate greeted yet again when she walked closer, interrupting his storytelling.

“Gentlemen”, she nodded before turning to Ponds. “Have you thought of my suggestion, Commander?”

“I have”, he nodded. “But... there’s some things I would like to discuss first, sir.”

“Sure. Let’s head to another table”, she gestured with her head to another corner of the pub. “Tell me.”

His eyes darted around for a moment, unsure. Dani just waited.

“...Would the 91st get a good replacement, if I were to accept?”, Ponds asked quietly.

“I have no say in that”, she replied honestly, looking down. “Can only promise that if they are shitty I can kick them out of the charge.”

He nodded slowly, eyes lost in thought.

“Windu... Windu is my General”, he looked up to her eyes. Dani just blinked, expression saddening at the conflicted emotions in the Commander’s eyes. “And I should follow his orders and _only_ his orders, but... I also can’t leave Boba alone. He is a child. And if _you_ ask me to do it...”

“Hey, hey, hey”, she gestured for him to slow down. “Ponds: I would certainly rest easy at night knowing that there’s such a good, kind man looking after Boba; but I can’t and I won’t force you to chose him over your Corps, you hear me? Because that wouldn’t be a choice at all. I have the situation somewhat under control: if you want to refuse the offer just say so. There will be no consequences”, she assured him, hand going to rest over his, but she retracted it when she realized they didn’t really knew each other that well. “Sorry”, she muttered.

Ponds seemed a bit fazed by the action too, but shook it off quickly at her apology.

“What do you mean you have it ‘somewhat under control’, sir?”, he asked carefully.

“I just hired him. He has to report to me once a month at least with gathered intel from the underworld.”

“So he is working for the GAR now?”, Ponds blinked.

“He is working for _me_ ”, she punctuated.

Both were suddenly very aware that she could have just lied to him: told him that yes, Boba was now working for the Republic and so he could watch the kid and still be in the GAR.

But she hadn’t. Fett was working for her, so going with him meant being outside of the army.

“...Would that be the mission? Gather intel? For what purpose?”

“To keep him busy and send him money so that he doesn’t lack of anything”, Dani smiled sheepishly, followed by a nervous chuckle.

Ponds jerked a bit at her admission.

“Yeah. I’m only lacking the adult supervision”, she shrugged.

“I’ll do it.”

His reply had been faster and his voice firmer than what she had expected for his expression.

“You sure?”, she asked softly.

“Yes. Yes, I’ll watch over him. Maybe... maybe we can even find something useful. To end the war. We would be reporting to you, correct?”

“Correct”, Dani nodded.

He turned to watch Boba over his shoulder: the kid was absentmindedly petting Grey’s belly, glancing at his surroundings to keep tabs on everybody in the bar.

“I’ll do it, sir”, he nodded to her.

Ducky literally sighed in relief.

“Thank you”, she smiled with heartfelt gratitude. “Thank you very much!”

“I should be the one thanking you, sir. That was an incredible save, back there”, he rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish smile.

“You can call me Dani. And it was my pleasure to help. Now: shall we properly introduce you to Boba?”, she gestured to where the young Fett had walked over the Admiral and Steer, hissing things at each other. “I hope nothing is about to blow over there”, she mused, walking swiftly towards them.

Even Hondo looked uncomfortable, leaning away from the others and giving her a pleading look.

“You know NOTHING about me!”, Boba was growling.

“Kilian, shut up”, Dani spitted before the Admiral could reply, and turned to her cousin. “How would you feel about Ponds accompanying you?”

He frowned, but wasn’t as nearly as angry as he had been with the old man.

“I don’t need anybody”, he grumbled yet again.

“And I’m not saying you do: it’s only that I think having a partner would do you good.”

“We haven’t discussed this when we were dealing! I want an increase in the fee.”

“I’m already paying more than you asked for; I admit that I should have told you about this idea before, but I don’t think it justifies another raise.”

“I can’t believe you are dealing with a bounty hunter—”

“Hush, Kilian! The youth is negotiating.”

“So you won’t be paying him?”

“The pay is for both of you.”

“No fair! You asked for _my_ fee!”

“And I am paying you _more_ than that”, she insisted.

Boba threw his hands up in the air, exasperated.

“Okay”, he finally huffed. “Okay. But only because I have had worse employers!”, he pointed at her face, and Dani stared at his fingertip, eyes drawn together. Boba huffed a laugh before clearing his throat and faking that it had been a cough. “You can come, but I’m _still_ the boss”, he told Ponds, raising his chin and resting his fists on his hips.

The Commander glanced at Ducky, but she was just snickering in silence.

“Sure, kiddo. I look forwards to working with you”, he chose to say, and very professionally offered a hand.

 

Boba hummed once more, but took it, satisfied.

“Uhm”, Steer meekly voiced, and Luna turned to blink at him. “...Could I join too?”

That actually caught the whole group by surprise.

“Why would you—“, Kilian began.

“No, it’s perfect!”, Dani interrupted him yet again. “Welcome aboard!”

“ _Now_ I want a raise!”, Boba grumbled.

“5.000 extra credits: no more, no less”, she refuted.

“Deal!”

“...I was going to explain what can I contribute with...”, the clone officer said carefully.

“Oh, sure, go on”, Ducky said apologetically.

 _Raising a child is hard, Ponds is going to need help_ , was one of her main thought. Plus: sneaking him out too!

“—ship maintenance, and charting.”

“Sweet. You are already in. And I think we’re done with that! You can take your leave”, she told to the three clones.

“General Luna!”, Kilian protested, livid. “You DO NOT have the authority to approve this kind of operations without the knowledge and approval of the GAR’s High Council! Much less re-assigning units without anyone else’s knowledge!”

“That, Admiral, we can discuss like adults, and in private”, she replied with an air of calm and maturity. “We’re done: Boba, Steer, Ponds”, she nodded to them. “We’ll stay in touch.”

Fett stepped closer to her and handed her Grey, scratching her head softly.

“Until next time”, he told the loth cat, and strode outside, gesturing for the other two to follow.

Dani watched them go, her mind at ease.

“Maybe it’s about time I turn on my commlink”, she mused to herself.

“General? Dani, are you there?”, a voice came out of it immediately.

“Hi Pedal! You nearby?”

“Nearby? I have been parked barely two clicks from you for what feels like an eternity! There’s some shady looking guys around here. Should I be concerned?”

“Not at all: tell them you are with me if they bother you. I’ll be coming soon, stand by.”

“Can’t leave without you”, the pilot reminded her, and hung up.

“So our lift is here”, she sighed to Kilian and Hondo. “Thanks for the shade, Ohnaka. Nice place you have here.”

“The service even includes keeping Bossk and Aurra from killing you”, he winked.

“What about Castas?”, she snickered.

“Oh, I think Sing killed him as a coping mechanism. You know how that goes”, he shrugged.

“I sure do”, she replied, standing up.

Hondo managed not to shiver.

“Shall we take our leave, Kilian? I’m sure you want to get back to the GAR and start on your reports on me as soon as possible”, she smiled to herself, gently placing Grey inside her satchel.

“Let’s”, the Admiral grumbled, visibly pissed off.

“Goodbye, Hondo. May our relationship keep improving.”

He waved them goodbye, breathing easier when she stepped out of his sight.

 

“This way”, she said once they were out of camp and found themselves walking inside semi-circular gorges.

“You look very calm, for someone who just broke a LOT of regulations in front of a fellow officer”, the Admiral grumbled.

“Well, I can’t make you un-see it, am I right? No point in worrying about something that can’t be changed”, she continued, walking ahead of him.

“You’re going to be court-martialled. Probably demoted. You may end up in jail! Aren’t you going to, I don’t know: try to justify yourself?”

“I don’t owe _you_ any explanation”, she growled, hand rummaging through her bag. She took out a glove and started putting it on.

“Save it for the court, then”, the old man snapped. “At least you seem willing to face the consequences of your acts...”, he added, softer.

“What about you, Kilian? Are _you_ ready to face the consequences of YOUR actions?”, she asked with voice even, and took a blaster out of her bag, aiming at his head.

Aurra’s blaster.

The Admiral froze in place, glancing around. They were already deep in the gorge and had taken too many turns to guess which way was camp. Suddenly, he realized he would be killed too even if he managed to get there.

“What do you think you are doing?!”, he tried. “Put that down right this instant, General! You don’t want to make your situation worse!”

“Worse? My situation is not bad at all”, she smirked. “A pity I couldn’t save any of the hostages, isn’t it?”

It clicked, in a non-sense way.

“That’s why you told Ponds and Steer to leave. You were going to kill me since the beginning and you wanted no witnesses.”

“Yeah. Don’t know what would I have done if Steer had chosen to come with us. Try not to kill him, I guess”, she shrugged.

“Why? Who sends you?! The Separatists?!”, he snarled, still frozen in place.

“Oh, no, no. This is personal”, she purred, not moving an inch closer to him. “You see, some months ago I was on Coruscant. A bounty hunter tried to kill my son, you see? So I went after them. Beat the shit out of them. It’s funny how people won’t stop talking when you have murder in your eyes. The thing is: they told me, number by number, the bank account that had paid them. The name was false, of course, but I pulled and the string. And pulled, and pulled, and pulled... And guess which name came up?”

Kilian pressed his lips shut.

“That’s right: Shoan Killian. I really wasn’t going to come after you, but the opportunity arose, so, you know...”

“I didn’t do it”, he said rapidly. “I didn’t orchestrate it! Spare my life, and I will tell you who did!”

“Aw, Kilian”, she tilted her head and drew a small smile. “I already know who did it.”

And she pulled the trigger.

The body fell to the dusty floor. Dani tossed the blaster to her feet and walked away.

“Hey, Pedal. I’m coming alone. How about some sparing before we go back? I need some bruises for credibility.”

 

Pedal helped Dani out of the ship and into _The Unruly_ ’s hangar. She was sporting a black eye and a split lip. Shades, Dogma and Laa’ka rushed to meet them.

“I’m fine”, she reassured them quietly, letting Shades examine her. “Couldn’t save the hostages, tho”, she added, looking down. “I was outnumbered and... It didn’t work...”

“It was a risky move”, Laa’ka reassured her with a hand on her shoulder. “You did your best.”

“Thanks”, she smiled briefly, resting her hands on his and tapping two times with her finger.

 _I just said a lie_ , the gesture said.

“General”, the Captain called her attention.

“Hey, Dogma. How did it go?”

“The situation got a bit out of hand, sir, so I called in the Wolfpack. They helped us retrieve General Skywalker and General Windu. They were sent to Coruscant to treat their injuries.”

“Good call”, she nodded, impressed. “I’m glad it went fine. Uh, casualties?”

“Non, sir.”

“Then it went great”, she smiled tiredly.

“Dani, come to the medbay, I want a full body scan just to be sure”, Shades piped up.

“There’s something more, sir”, Dogma added hastily. “Commander Wolffe asked me to tell you that he has intel for you. Something about a personal request you made.”

“Wolffe...? What did I—“, her eyes went wide with shock at the realization. “Oh. Oh. Thanks, Dogma, I—Thanks. I’ll call him.”

The Captain smiled briefly.

“You’re welcome, sir. Now go and rest. Ian and I have everything under control”, he said, giving a reassuring nod.

Ducky smiled with all the sweetness she could muster, and made to follow Shades.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Lian, Shmi and a bunch of clones cheering Jango as he makes a titanic effort to move the ball and get Grey to get into Dani's satchel  
> *Cabur, who got a dragon to adopt his batchmates, sipping from his drink*: noobs
> 
> *Dani: senses Anakin and Mace inside the otherwise deserted Star Cruiser --> I sleep  
> *Also Dani: senses what seems to be three clone signals and four unknows --> REAL SHIT


	39. Poltergeist's Echoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saving Echo. Becuse IT HAD TO BE DONE  
> Also, starring the Deltas instead of the Bad Batch, because they are cool an all, but the Deltas could have perfectly been a part of Echo's rescue in canon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey I'm a little busy being a real life Separatist against a fascist regime, but writing calms me down so I guess I'll be steady on this unless thoug stuff comes up.

“So we’re not telling the 501st guys”, Dogma stated, just to be sure.

“No”, Luna was quick to reply, her head held by her hands and elbows resting on the table as she faced the flat surface. “No, I don’t want to get their hopes up before we have everything under control. What would we say?”, she giggled nervously. “’Hey guys, we found Echo, but he died on the way, sorry you have to mourn him again!’”, she mocked.

“Dani”, Ian said in a warning tone.

“Sorry”, she mumbled with a troubled frown, crossing her arms on the table and letting her head rest on them.

“Skako Minor is neutral territory. We can’t get close with _The Unruly_ ”, Dogma noted.

“And most of our smaller ships scream ‘Republic’ just because of their design”, Ian continued.

“That’s why I propose that we call in Commandos”, the General said, raising her head. “Their ships are not widely known around the galaxy; and they have more experience in this kind of covered operations.”

It was not a new idea, she had presented it before and kept insisting on it.

“We can deal with it”, Laa’ka tried to argue, yet again.

“It’s not about being able to deal with it: it’s about experience, it’s about having the best odds!”

“Then I don’t know why you called me to get my opinion if you are going to do whatever you want in the end!”, the ARC snapped.

“She’s the General, she HAS the last word on this”, Dogma pointed out. It wasn’t a reproach aimed at him, but a simple reminder. The Captain still clung to rules and regulations, but he was finding a balance between his respect for those and their enforcement.

“And calling in commandoes doesn’t mean that you guys are immediately out!”, Dani proceeded. “I just—We can’t take a whole squad there, the more we are the harder it will be to go unnoticed! I can’t cloak a lot of people for the time that’s going to take us to do things slow and easy, and I WON’T trade somebody else’s life for Echo’s!”, she jabbed her finger at the table, expression set in an angry yet troubled frown.

“Who’s your dream team, then”, Ian prompted after a few seconds of silence as Luna calmed herself down.

“Delta squad”, she said, rubbing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “A medic or two.”

“Take just one if you are going, sir”, Dogma chimed in. “I know you don’t exactly hold the title, but your Force-healing can easily make up for the lack of another medic, and it will be one person less to cloak.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you are right”, she said quietly. “And someone I trust to watch my back”, she continued, and turned to Laa’ka.

He blinked at her, a bit moved by her wording, but the flattery turned into slight worry.

“Why? You don’t trust the Deltas?”

“It’s not that”, she shrugged a bit awkwardly. “But I have just met them once, years ago, and everything went quite well but... Their trainer ordered his pet to attack me and I almost killed it. After that I was ushered away and we haven’t spoken since then, so I have no idea what kind of atmosphere there’s going to be. Not that I think that they are going to kill me, but...”

“I get it”, the ARC said, reliving her from having to give more explanations. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

 

Boss answered Ducky’s call, helmet jerking as he recognised her. She gave him an awkward smile and a warm greeting before making her formal petition. Fixer walked by behind the leader and froze when he recognised her too. Scorch was quick to rear his head inside the projector’s range too, and soon Sev was hanging in the back of the display as the demolitions expert chatted with the General briefly.

“And the mission, sir?”, Boss asked, addressing her as a superior for the first time.

“Incursion into ‘neutral’ territory and rescue of ARC trooper Echo. We don’t know his exact condition, so a medic of the 0th and one of my ARCs will be coming with us. We have plans that we can review and change once you are aboard _The Unruly_ , if you take the job.”

“Just say the place and time”, Sev purred.

 

Dogma left the meeting (because he, Ian and Laa’ka had been present during the call, too) and went to his favourite lounge room to think. It was the one where Apple had brought him after the first night he had spent on board: kept in medical for observation as he tried to sleep off the overwhelming anxiety and exhaustion that had followed his trial. It hadn’t been enough to make the trembling of his hands go away or calm down his racing pulse.

_It’s quiet in here_ , the medic had said, helping him down on the couch and placing a water bottle nearby. _And quiet can be hard to find._

It was also the room where Dani had found him and spoke heart-to-heart with him.

So maybe it was silly, but to Dogma, that was a place of peace and truth.

He needed both now to himself.

A while later (not more than thirty minutes, because he had set a timer and it hadn’t went off yet), there was a gentle knock on the door, and it swished open. The Captain opened his eyes to find Venus cautiously stepping in.

“Hey, partner”, she greeted softly.

“Hey”, he replied with a brief smile, so she went to sit down next to him.

“Came to see how you are doing. Since Dani is up to do yet another mission under the GAR’s radar.”

“I—“, he started, but bit it down, but decided against it because he REALLY needed to speak his thoughts and Venus had been there before and hadn’t judged him even a bit. “She _is_ leading a mission that hasn’t been approved by _anyone_ in the GAR, but... She is doing it to save a _brother_ ”, he stressed, turning his head to look at his sister’s eyes with a confused, somewhat pained expression. “And it’s not even favouritism! It’s not that she is going to do whatever it takes to have Echo back, it’s that Luna doesn’t want anybody to die trying!”

Venus remained silent.

Dogma shook his head. “How am I supposed to disagree with that?”, he breathed out, burring his head between his hands.

“Who says you have to disagree with it?”, the other shrugged.

“She’s outside regulations”, he mumbled without looking up. “If I don’t disagree with the General’s actions, I’m disagreeing with the regulations.”

“Okay”, Venus nodded slowly. “And that makes you feel uncomfortable with the situation.”

“Yes.”

“But it wouldn’t if we did this following the rules.”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

“But there’s no way the big bosses are giving us permission to enter neutral space to retrieve _one_ ARC trooper.”

“I...”, a part of himself wanted to argue, to say they at least had to try. But to say the truth: that part of himself had shrunk during the last few months.

He didn’t try to continue, and Venus didn’t push him further or tried to justify their General.

“You know what’s funny?”, the Captain huffed, finally raising his head. “This doesn’t make me as uncomfortable as it would have some time ago.”

“...Do you think that’s a good, or a bad thing?”, Venus asked quietly.

“Thought you were going to answer that for me”, he chuckled dryly.

“I could, but that would be my opinion. The answer that matters is yours.”

“Did you pick that up from Dani? Because for claiming not to be a Jedi, there’s a lot of Jedi wisdom being dispensed around here.”

Venus laughed loudly.

“You know? That’s a good one! We have to bring that up next time she says something deep!”

Dogma snickered at the idea and the hypothetical dumbfounded expression the young woman would sport.

Venus stood up, stretching.

“Are you up for a game of sabbac? I feel like obliterating you today”, she winked and smirked, offering a hand.

“Not in your wildest dreams!”, he smirked back, and took it.

 

Dani was uncharacteristically silent, and therefore uncharacteristically nervous as the Deltas made the last minute checks. It was obvious to Ian, to Laa’ka, to Apple, even Dogma could tell with total confidence that he wasn’t reading her wrong.

“Dani”, the Commander spoke up, and she flinched, turning briskly to him. “It’s going to be okay”, he said lowly, resting his hands on her shoulders and feeling a slight tremor. “You are going to do your best, and so will the Deltas. Our plan is solid, and we have back-ups. It will be alright.”

She gripped his wrists and took a deep breath.

Ian knew there wasn’t really anything that could be done to ease her pre-mission anxiety, but he also knew that she would be alright once the action started. It was the same with him, and they were always there for each other in moments like that. Ian would tag alone without a second of hesitation if he weren’t painfully aware of the exertion that cloaking seven persons would put on her; let alone eight if they managed to retrieve Echo.

Ducky released his wrists, and he let his arms fall.

“I will do my best”, she nodded to herself. “Nice and slow: more checks, less mistakes.”

“Exactly”, the Commander encouraged her one more time.

Dani was nervous, but not nervous enough to not notice Boss approaching them.

“We are ready, sir”, he reported, securing his helmet on place.

“Okay”, she nodded, fingers brushing over the chest plate she was wearing. She had decided against additional armour and wore only boots and bracelets over a black hoodie. “Let’s do this.”

 

“Veer right”, she suddenly said.

“What?”, Sev asked on reflex, thinking he had misheard her.

“VEER RIGHT!”

He reacted brusquely at the order, narrowly missing a fairly big winged creature that screeched at them.

“Holy _kriff_! What was that?!”, Apple screeched.

“Keeradaks”, Dani shrugged, a distant memory of Cabur talking excitedly about them emerging from the depths of her mind. “It’s coming back and it’s got company.”

“Tell me which way they are attacking from!”, Sev requested.

“They are going to come consecutive”, she warned. “Right, middle, right, left, below—Wha...? I think there’s people _riding_ these things!”

“You think they are with the Seps?”, Laa’ka asked.

“We’re going to a high-tech centre or something, it makes no sense that they would come at us _How To Train Your Dragon_ style!”

“Woo, I want a Toothless too!”, Laa’ka cheered.

“Get in line!”, she spat playfully.

“Sir, if you don’t mind, what do we do about the situation?”, Sev asked through greeted teeth.

“Can you loose them? We are busy and I’m not feeling sociable today.”

“You got it. Buckle up!”

Everybody scrambled for the seats as Sev guided the ship into a loop-the-loop. They didn’t have a good sight of what was happening, so they just hoped that whatever the commando was doing was going well and that he would tell them if it wasn’t working. Dani kept an eye out for the living Force of the creatures, and saw them stop and regroup as they flew further away from them and towards the smoke-covered ground.

“I think I lost them. Luna?”

“They are out of my range, but I can’t tell if they have means to find us again.

“Let’s give it ten minutes, gives us a heads-up if they get close again”, Boss suggested.

Dani nodded her agreement, and so they settled to wait. She was busy monitoring the Force around them, but the other six didn’t have much to do, and honestly, nobody felt like reviewing the plan again: it was basic and built around improvisation, so call it a plan was, perhaps, too generous.

But well: it’s not as if that wasn’t the Delta’s _modus operandi_ , and the 0thers were already used to that.

Laa’ka could have played the ‘so, commandos, huh?’ card, but decided against it. He craved friendly banter, but didn’t want to risk upsetting the Deltas; even less when they visibly had a good relationship with Dani and they were going to help them get Echo bad.

_Force_ , he was nervous about that.

Confirmation of Echo, ALIVE. That had hit hard after grieving his death for weeks. Fives and Echo and been not unlike mentors in the last stages of his ARC training, and Laa’ka... Laa’ka appreciated them: like _ori’vod’e_ , or—

Maybe the word had been lurking in the back of his mind, or maybe he saw Ducky in the corner of his eye and that was what sprung it all, but the fact is that the word echoed in his suddenly blank mind:

_Like parents_

The word faded and was replaced again by _ori’vod’e_ , but that left him with something else to think about. Was he as nervous as Dani would be if they ever found her father?

“So”, Scorch cleared his throat, blissfully breaking the silence, “Guess Luna must really trust you, huh?”

Laa’ka blinked, realising he was addressing him.

In any other situation, he would have bragged, but didn’t find it in him at the moment.

“We’ve known each other for a long time. The trust is mutual”, he shrugged.

“And what about you, medic?”

“The name’s Apple”, he replied, not looking up from where he was taking stock of his tools and medical supplies. “Haven’t known the General for as long as Laa’ka has, and interacting with her was very weird at the beginning—Scratch that, it still is most of the time—But you get used to it. She’s more brains that brawl and cares more for lives than objectives, so I don’t have any objections to whatever she does as long as that doesn’t change.”

“In fact, I’d say we’re the ones here that know her less”, Fixer chimed in. “I mean: how long were we together? Fifteen hours? Twenty-four tops. And our farewells were quite rushed.”

“It’s rude to talk about people that can hear you”, Dani mumbled, just with a bit of annoyance in her tone. “Are the ten minutes up yet?”

“Three left”, Boss informed, and her eyes glassed again.

“You’re the only damn thing we have in common!”, Scorch tried to retort, but she wasn’t listening anymore.

“Uh, no: she’s not”, Fixer snorted.

“Ah, can it!”, the yellow and black commando threw a ration bar at his brother playfully.

He caught it nonchalantly and shook it a bit.

“Finders keepers.”

“Prf! No big deal. This is going to be quick.”

“Don’t. Jinx. Us”, Sev said slowly.

Everybody was expecting him to protest, but Scorch crossed his arms and leaned back on the wall.

Boss checked his timer.

“Luna”, he said, and shook her shoulder slightly, “Luna, time’s up.”

She suddenly leaned forward and blinked away the Force-sight, looking a bit on-edge.

“Nobody’s following us”, she reported, voice hoarse.

She made a sharp noise to clear her throat and stood up.

Boss, Laa’ka and Fixer shot an arm to steady her, even tho she didn’t sway.

“I’m fine”, she frowned at them. “I’m just tense. Not gonna pass out or anything.”

“Drink some water, and then we can leave”, Apple said, already offering his own canteen.

Dani didn’t argue, taking a few sips before returning it to the medic with a quiet ‘thanks’.

 

They walked in silence through the cloud of dust, with the only sound of their steps and the quiet reassurances Ducky said every now and then, reporting that there weren’t any life-signals nearby that could pose a threat. She and Laa’ka walked side by side, brushing their shoulders for mutual comfort. He may not be Force-sensitive, but could perfectly tell when her tension spiked.

“Ahead of us”, Fixer piped up after checking his wrist-computer.

They all looked up at the impossibly high and narrow building.

“...Was it necessary?”, the ARC whined.

Luna snickered, a portion of nervousness leaving her body.

“It will be easier to blow up once we are done!”, Scorch pointed cheerfully, resting his fists on his waist. “...Because we are blowing this up later, right?”, he added, turning to look at the General.

“Leave no prove that we have been here”, she replied with a knowing smile.

“Cool.”

“There’s a security camera in the elevator. Can you hide us from it?”, Fixer asked over his shoulder, already busy with the entrance panel.

“And whatever awaits us on top”, she nodded, looking up again and reaching out with the Force.

Apple kept an eye on her for any sign that she was more tired than she was letting on, but only found a troubled expression.

“What is it? Can you feel Echo?”, he asked.

“I—Maybe? I can’t really tell, it feels... muffled. As if—”

_As if he were barely alive dying fading marching on slipping away deteriorating—_

“It’s okay”, the medic pulled her out of her thoughts, resting a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll be with him in no time.”

“Hate to be the one to bring it up, sir, but have you considered it might be a trap?”, Boss asked.

“My source is very reliable”, she assured him, voice firm. “And I’m literally sensing Echo now.”

“Don’t mean to question you, General”, he proceeded. “But keep in mind that the enemy may find a way to use decoys against you.”

“That’s actually questioning me, and you can do so openly”, she giggled dryly, because okay: he had just made a good point. “I trust my intel, but I’ll keep that in mind.”

Boss nodded, content to see that she was really considering his words.

“Our ride’s here”, Fixer chimed in.

“Okay”, Dani said quietly to herself. “Let’s go”, she added louder, walking to the entrance.

Once everybody had converged there, she took a deep breath and cloaked them all.

Fixer opened the elevator’s door and everybody stepped inside.

The lift was long but fast, made in complete silence for more effectiveness of the Force-cloaking.

“Ten units waiting for us outside. Let’s try to slip past them”, she reported in a hushed tone. The replies also came hushed as the clones readied their weapons. Dani had her lightsaber, vibroblade and DC-17, and wouldn’t hesitate to use any of them if it was needed. But, for the moment, she didn’t draw anything, busing herself with making them invisible.

The door’s opened to several weird-looking droids not quite aiming at them. Their heads tilted in confusion as they didn’t register anyone standing before them.

“It’s empty”, one commented. Dani and Laa’ka had already walked past them.

“Maybe it was just a malfunction”, the other shrugged.

“We should report it to Wat Tambor anyways.”

Ducky turned brusquely to it, Sev almost tripping over her.

“Good idea!”, another droid said, and they started marching away.

Dani made to follow them, but the sniper saw the murder intent in her eyes and grabbed her by the arm.

“We’re here to retrieve Echo”, he reminded her with an angry hiss. “Turn this into an assassination and we will be in trouble!”

She looked down briefly in shame before turning to the direction she was previously taking. They followed in silence, checking corners and lateral corridors and trying to keep up with the General, who walked down the hallways as if she owned the place: her pace brisk and expression grieve as she dodged droids and other personnel, barely slowing down. She did stop every now and then if she sensed the others were lagging behind, keeping an eye out in case they didn’t have enough space to slip through patrols and creating distractions to make it easier for them. Eventually they arrived at a wider hall, with a door bigger than others they had encountered.

“There”, she said quietly, pointing at it.

Fixer and Apple walked ahead of her as the others watched their backs. Dani found herself hesitating to go closer, suddenly aware that she was _afraid_ of what they might find.

“Hey”, Laa’ka nudged her lightly, looking at her briefly before returning to watching the corridor they had come from. “It’s okay. We almost got it. We’ll deal with it together, alright?”

“Yeah”, she whispered back. “Thank you.”

He nodded reassuringly at her and nudged her again, this time to go join Apple and Fixer. The man in question was already butchering the panel (which also looked very different that most devices Dani had seen since arriving to the galaxy. Guess the Techno Union liked to make fancy things).

“How’s it going?”, she asked.

“Almost got it. Just making sure nobody knows the door opens.”

Waiting, Ducky could only expand her sight, anxiously trying to feel Echo more clearly and glancing at the droids going up and down the corridors. To do what? She didn’t know and she didn’t care, as long as it wasn’t shooting at them.

“Got it!”

“Wait”, she said, placing a hand on Fixer’s shoulder as if to bodily hold him. “Nobody move.”

Four droids marched through the peripheral corridor. They waited in silence until they were out of sight.

“Now.”

The door swished open, revealing another door behind it.

Behind them, Scorch grunted in annoyance. Dani could have shrieked, but refrained from doing so.

“It’s okay, I got this”, Fixer assured them.

They all turned to the lobby as he worked, with nothing left to do but stand guard. This time, though, he was even faster to unlock and disconnect the door from the security feed.

“Done”, he confirmed as it opened.

The group slipped inside, doors closing behind them.

The room was incredibly big and cold, with lots of refrigerating units that took up a great deal of space on the floor. At the end of the passage, slightly elevated, there was what seemed to be a human-sized pod.

“Oh, god”, Luna mumbled, swallowing hard and taking a ~~fearful~~ careful step forwards. She forced herself to walk towards it, to focus on the part of herself that _knew_ that Echo was right there and was excited about finding him, about taking him home. The dread at the bottom of her stomach was a mighty foe, but somehow, next she knew she was standing in front of it: Fixer rummaging through the several switches and levels; Apple and Laa’ka next to her and the other three Deltas keeping an eye out for hostiles, since Dani seemed too distracted by the whole situation and they really couldn’t bring themselves to demand she kept her mind on the mission.

“It seems to be a stasis chamber... Hold on; I’m going to open it.”

She wanted to scream: _NO, don’t do it, what if you hurt him, what if he dies, what if this is a mistake, what if I fucked up—_

But her mouth seemed to be sealed shut. At least, until the pod opened and a body fell forward.

Dani gasped loudly, and would have screamed if Boss hadn’t embraced her from behind, keeping her steady and covering her mouth with a gloved hand. Apple and Laa’ka hurried to climb over the equipment to support their brother.

“It’s okay”, Boss murmured to her. “It’s okay, kid, it’s gonna be alright. Take deep breaths”, she took a sharp inhale and let it go slowly. “That’s it: nothing dangerous is happening, okay? No need to panic. Now: go help your friend if you can”, and he let go of her.

She automatically stepped towards where the 0thers had lowered Echo. He looked—He looked bad. His skin was pale, too pale and sickly and his cheeks sunken and too much metal protruding from his body: the strange apparatus that was now his right hand and another over an ear and over his chest and spine and—

It was too much, but also nothing at all, because all that information was only contributing to panic and _on my ovaries I’m not having a panic attack here!!!!!!_

“Can we detach the cables?”, she asked anxiously.

“I’m working on it”, Fixer replied. “All his bodily functions are being controlled by computer-generated brain waves. I have to bypass it first.”

She would have given a polite reply, but Echo started mumbling incoherently.

“Brother”, Laa’ka called softly, taking off his helmet and placing a hand on his shoulder.

“No... No! I’ll go first...”

He shot his hand up in a motion that Dani hadn’t expected, and she gasped and leaned back, but suddenly the hand was lowering.

She gently took it and started her examination as Apple measured his vitals.

“Echo, brother”, Laa’ka called him again, cupping his face and directing his glassy gaze towards his eyes. “Look at me: it’s Laa’ka, it’s okay, we got you.”

His eyes darted around his face, searching his right temple, but found nothing there, so they drifted until they found his moon tattoo.

“...Kid?”

“Yes”, he replied immediately, a hopeful smile tugging at his lips. “Yes, it’s me. Dani is here, too, and Apple! We’re getting you out.”

“Where... am I...?”, he asked as he blinked, eyes drifting to the people around him, slowly gaining awareness.

“Don’t worry about that. You just rest: we’ll manage everything else, alright?”

“Fives...”, Echo whined, closing his eyes.

“Fives’ not here now, but we’ll call him as soon as we get you to medical, I promise.”

The 501ster didn’t reply, a weaker whine escaping his throat.

“How is he?”, he asked with worry, eyes jumping from Apple to Dani.

“Vital signs are weak, but stable”, the medic reported. “Evident malnutrition, unknown internal damage, low tension... Can’t be more precise without full-body scans.”

“He’s exhausted”, Dani added. “I’m trying to help him focus.”

“Sir, we have a problem here”, Fixer piped up.

She turned her head so fast that her neck might as well had snapped.

“I’m almost ready to unplug him, but the computer is pulling a signal out of Echo. Once we remove the cables, they will know we are here. There’s no way I can hide that from the servers.”

“Fuck”, she exhaled. “Okay. Okay then, our options are: I keep up the cloaking and we do our best to avoid confrontations as we book it out of here; I drop the cloaking and we blast our way out; or a combination of the two. I vote to avoid confrontation as much as possible.”

“Ditto”, Boss agreed.

“It’s decided then. He is ready to unplug. On your mark, General.”

“Not yet. Scorch: best way to blow this place up?”, Dani asked over her shoulder, but the commando in question was already placing his twelfth set of charges in the room.

“Nearly done here! Was thinking of leaving a surprise package in the elevator too!”, and Dani could feel him winking under the helmet.

“Remotely activated, I take”, she arched an eyebrow.

“Of course! Nobody wants to repeat the ‘oh shit we almost blew ourselves up with the space station’ _osik_ of that time, right?”

“Right”, the other Deltas nodded in unison.

Luna chuckled quietly before doing a quick sweep of her surroundings, making sure that no one had noticed them yet, and returned to passing some energy to Echo. She really wanted to give more than the drops she was administrating, but they still had to get out of there and couldn’t afford to be too tired to walk out by herself.

“I’m done”, Scorch confirmed, jumping off the metal bar he had climbed onto and walking to the door, gun ready.

“Everybody ready?”

“Ready”, was the chorus of replies.

“Laa’ka, can you carry Echo? I want to have easy access if anything happens”, Apple requested.

“Sure, _vod_.”

“Dani, help me manoeuvre him.”

She moved immediately, carefully gripping the ARC’s shoulder.

“Hey, Echo”, she spoke softly but clearly. “Laa’ka’s going to be carrying you now, okay? It’s going to be fine. We’re taking you with us.”

His eyes opened a bit, brown locking with brown.

“Fives...?”, he asked in a whisper.

“We will take you with him”, Ducky assured him, gently rubbing his back as Laa’ka slipped his arms under his metal thighs to carry him on his back. “Hold tight, okay? He has missed you so much.”

The ghost of a fond smile flickered in his eyes before they closed again.

Apple already had a tube trapped in his fist, awaiting her. Dani took one on her own and nodded. Echo grunted weakly as he was tugged free.

An alarm started blaring as the last one was discarded.

“Move, move, move!”, Boss called, already ahead of them, holding one of the doors open with Sev and Scorch.

Apple and Dani pulled Laa’ka to his feet, making sure he kept his balance. The General ran ahead with Fixer to help keep the doors open. The ARC and medic hurried to slip past them and into the lobby. The interior door was abandoned and it snapped close, same with the exterior one once everybody was in the clear. They could already hear the thunderous clank of metal feet marching towards them. Luna signed for everybody to plaster themselves against the wall.

Soon several squads of droids were occupying a great deal of space in the corridors, aiming at the closed door, but not at them. They stayed like that for eternal minutes, until some droids parted to let three Skakoans pass.

“A pity that the Organic Decimator isn’t ready yet”, the one walking in front mused.

They walked to the door’s console, a screen lighting up with a camera feed from the inside of the room.

“...There’s nobody there.”

“The pod’s open. AND empty.”

“Illogical. There’s obviously an intruder!”

Dani moved away from the group, trying to find a route through the droids standing in the corridor.

Their formation was too tight: she alone would have trouble making her way among the metal limbs; let alone four commandos and an ARC carrying Echo.

The Skakoans opened the doors, sending droids inside to sweep the room. But still, the corridor was too crowded. Dani’s eyes were wide in fear: fully aware that they were completely surrounded and outnumbered, that if she slipped only a bit they would know they were _right there_ and they would all be executed without a second thought—

_Panic equals blackout_ , a part of her mind supplied. And that wasn’t exactly what they needed, but there was something close to it. Something risky, something that made her lurk closer to what the Jedi called the Dark Side.

But Laa’ka was there, Apple was there, the Deltas were there.

It was going to be okay.

She retuned to the group, expression turning blank, and gave her orders:

“Get out of here. I’m going poltergeist.”

She turned to leave, but was restrained by somebody grabbing her wrist.

“But you’ll follow us, right?”, Apple stressed. “You gotta come back.”

“I will”, she nodded, and slipped out of his grip.

“What the _kriff_ is going on?”, Boss demanded with an angry hiss.

“This place is about to become a _karking_ nightmare”, the medic explained. “Whatever happens: don’t let it faze you, stick together and go for the elevator!”, he continued, pushing the commandos towards the way they had come from.

“What do you mean?! Where’s Luna going?!”, Sev snarled, seeing as she dodged her way in the opposite direction they were going.

“To distract them”, was all Laa’ka replied as he readjusted his grip on Echo.

An unholy, unnatural shriek tore through the whole building: it came from everywhere and nowhere at once, high-pitched and ear-piercing; it chilled every organic to the bone and even made a good bunch of droids short-circuit and deactivate, the others spinning around as they tried to pinpoint the source, each one of them receiving different input. The Deltas and 0thers took advantage of the initial chaos to slip down the corridor.

And then the nightmare truly began.

It started with moving figures in the corners of their eyes: they were there, but once their eyes focused they were not.

“Don’t look, don’t look!”, Apple warned frantically.

It got worse when the humanoid forms stopped fading away: faceless bodies and tangles of limbs screeched endlessly, standing in corners or crawling on the walls or amidst the sea of droids. The machines spun and shot, but the blaster bolts travelled through the figures and they ended up shooting down their own.

“What the _kriff_ ”, Boss breathed out with great feeling. “WHAT THE _KRIFF_.”

“Just keep moving!”, Apple pushed them. “It’s not real, Dani’s just messing with everybody’s perception but the more we freak out the more realistic the hallucinations will be!”

 

It was EXHILARATING.

Who could have thought that fear would taste so good? She hadn’t, that’s for sure. But the rush of adrenaline as she saw the Skakoans cower in fear drew a mad smile on her face, and she couldn’t stop: too high on the chaos she had created.

_Die, die_ , her mind chanted. _You deserve hell and I’m gonna give it to you!!!_

Around her, the droid army was shooting itself down. It eventually quieted down, another thought popping in her mind:

_It worked!_

It was cheerful, hopeful. What for? What had she achieved?

_Protect, safe_ , the reply came from her very core, eyes going wide at the intensity of the emotions behind it.

_Laa’ka Apple Echo Boss Scorch Fixer Sev_

Yeah, that’s right: the goal wasn’t to terrify just because, it was a distraction. A distraction so everybody would be safe.

Ducky remembered Apple’s words in a flash, and turned on her heels, towards the elevator. It was tricky, running through the corridors packing with scrap metal. She stumbled a couple of times, but managed to catch herself. The humanoid forms were starting to fade out of existence. The third time, she wasn’t so lucky.

Her feet found unstable purchase and her knees buckled, her sight blurring for an agonizing moment as she clenched her teeth, waiting to hit the ground. Mercifully, the ground never came.

“Luna!”, a voice called as she was caught and shook like a milkshake. “Where were you, we are ready to leave!”, Sev scolded her.

She blinked up at him, the world distorted as she came down from directing the collective hallucination. Stop feeding off fear when just a handful of minutes ago it had seemed like an endless source of power and strength was... hard.

“Can you walk?”, he shook her again, seeing that she wasn’t responding.

“Yeah”, she croaked, pushing herself to her feet. “The others...?”

“Holding the lift for us”, he confirmed, pulling her the rest of the way up.

Dani took a cautious step and didn’t fall, so she went for it. Her whole focus was now on walking and being aware of her immediate surroundings, so she did not hear or sense the straggler appearing from behind.

“WATCH OUT!”, the sniper called, and spun to cover Ducky with his own body.

She gasped loudly and trembled at the sudden hold and pained cry that came from above her. The word became sharp around her as she bared her teeth, lifting Sev on her back and extending an arm towards the droid: energy concentrated in her palm before shooting to it.

The droid was fried in two seconds flat, and Dani was already running towards the elevator.

“You okay?!”, she asked over her shoulder.

“Fine”, the commando grunted. “Those fuckers pack some power... Let me down, I can walk...”

“Over here!”, Scorch waved at them, half body leaning out of the lift, before she could reply or lower him.

So she sprinted the rest of the way, slamming herself against a wall as a result.

“You were never good at slowing down”, Laa’ka huffed, amused.

“Oh, shut it”, she grumbled, sticking her tongue out playfully and lowering Sev to the floor.

He stuck his tongue back.

Boss had already slammed the controller, the final descend initiated. Apple kneeled beside her and shone a light into her eyes. She tried to flinch away, but he placed a hand on the back of her neck to keep her steady.

“Stop it. Follow the light.”

She complied with a grimace.

“Any unusual feelings?”

“I feel fine.”

“You’re not. You’re showing the first signs of Force-exhaustion. It’s just a matter of time before you pass out.”

“You think I can make it to the ship?”, she asked with distant worry.

“I hope so”, he mused, and went to take an emergency blanket from his backpack to wrap Echo in it.

“How’s he?”, she slurred a bit.

“The sooner we get him to a medbay, the better”, the medic sighed.

Dani reached out to the unconscious ARC trooper.

“No, no no no no!” Apple roared, taking hold of her wrist. “You keep your hands to yourself!”

“But—”

“You do that; you’re going to faint right here! Shades might put up with whatever shit you come up with but I’m in NO mood to babysit you!”

Ducky actually flinched at that, retracting her hand and making Apple feel slightly guilty. Her attention fell on the atmosphere around her, and was suddenly aware of the tension in the air: the certainty that if the elevator were to be stopped or sent back up they would be sitting ducks. She realised with growing terror that she was doing _nothing_ : wasn’t cloaking them, wasn’t keeping up the hallucinations, wasn’t checking for living Force—

She did a compulsory sweep, but felt dizzy at the spots of light and had to quit it, holding her head between her hands. The elevator come to a halt and she gasped in fear, eyes widening and sparks gathering in her palms—

“We’re clear, move, move, MOVE!”, Boss hollered, pushing Laa’ka and Echo out before hauling Sev up.

Fixer reached for Dani and pulled her up too. Scorch lagged behind, taking all the thermal detonators he had left and throwing them inside the lift.

“So long, suckers!”

And raced to join the others.

The lift was called buck up, but the explosives went off and it was rendered useless. The group sprinted back to the ship and everybody scattered: Boss and Fixer went for the cockpit, Laa’ka went to laid down Echo on the med-station that had been set up before commencing the mission as Sev and Dani helped each other there, with Apple surging past them to get everything ready. Scorch went to a turret, just in case, with a detonator in hand. The post also gave him a good peripheral view. As soon as they were high enough, he pushed the button.

The building lighted up in flames, tower collapsing and taking another building with it.

 

They were received in a haze of activity and shouted orders. Echo was quickly ushered to the medbay, an army of medics surrounding him. Dani fell to her knees and vomited bile, body quacking and breathing frantic. Laa’ka had been about to follow Echo, but kneeled down beside her.

“It’s okay, kid. You can go”, Commander Ian said as he seemed to materialise out of nowhere, holding his General by the shoulders. “I got her.”

He hesitated for a second, but nodded and left.

“You did it, Dani”, he whispered encouragingly. “Echo is here, he’s safe. You are all okay.”

She rose her head groggily, eyes glassed.

“Sev?”

“Sev’s fine too: he just needs a bacta patch.”

“Hnh...”, she grunted, head lolling.

“Sleep. Dogma and I will deal with the aftermath.”

She didn’t need to be told twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On Ducky's power:  
> -It's highly based on manipuation of perception: the Mind Trick brought to a different level. She will either convince you that she is not there or that she is everywhere.  
> -Her Force-healing is actually closer to the Dark Side than the Lit Side, because she takes life Force to pass it to the wounded. Instead of taking it from thirds as a bad person would do, she takes her own.


	40. Quiet Echoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quiet moments for Echo to recover and reunite with Fives and his brothers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You think this story is about the daughter of a clone fixing the star wars universe, huh? Well you are WRONG!!!! This is about me trying to learn to write Hurt/Comfort!!!!  
> Let's see if I can get it right at chapter 40

The 0th‘s Captain and Commander stood in front of the long-range communicator. They both had tried to discuss the best way to approach the subject, and had a basic outline, but couldn’t agree on the details. At the end, the conclusion was that Echo’s brothers from the 501st had to be informed od the situation as soon as possible, without sugar-coating. They deserved to know everything.

It was Ian who sighed and made the call, taking a step back to stand right beside Dogma and clasping his hands behind his back.

“Commander Ian, sir”, Rex answered, coming to attention and saluting. “Captain Dogma”, he added with a smile in his voice when he noticed him. “What can I help you with, sirs?”

“Are you busy, Captain?”, Ian asked. “We have something to report to you... And Fives should hear it too.”

“Uh, sure, sir: I’ll call him right away”, he replied immediately, hitting a key on his wristcomm. “Are we needed for a mission?”

“No, but you might want to come once you have been debriefed.”

Rex blinked, clearly confused.

“We’ll explain, Rex”, Dogma sighed. “But Fives really needs to hear this.”

“Okay”, he replied slowly, clearly concerned. “Should I call General Skywalker too?”

“We would rather not. You judge if he has to hear this after we tell you.”

It didn’t take long for Fives to arrive, saluting his Captain and then the 0thers.

“What am I needed for, sirs?”

“You should take a sit”, Ian said gently.

The ARC raised an eyebrow. “Okay...”, he said slowly in almost the same way Rex had just a few minutes before, obeying.

Ian and Dogma looked at each other. Dogma gave a small nod and stepped forwards.

“Twenty-four standard hours ago, General Luna left with Delta Squad, ARC trooper Laa’ka and Combat Medic Apple on a mission, following a lead on a Republic prisoner being held on supposed neutral territory. They came back three hours ago”, he made a pause, swallowing. “with Echo.”

The following silence turned from shocked to angry.

“This isn’t funny”, Fives snarled.

“It’s not a joke, Fives”, Ian snarled back. “You know NON OF US would ever lie about something like that.”

“It’s impossible!”, the ARC roared. “I saw him die! HE GOT BLOWN UP!”

Rex reached for him, but Fives swatted him away.

“It CAN’T be him, it has to be somebody else, congrats on rescuing him but to call me to tell me that my BATCHMATE is alive when—”

“Dani confirmed it’s him”, Ian cut him. “She checked his Force-signature: it’s him.”

His jaw dropped.

“Call her”, he demanded. “I want her to look at me in the eyes and tell me—”

“General Luna is currently unconscious, being treated for Force-exhaustion. She is expected to wake up in 8 to 12 hours”, Dogma replied.

“I—“, he stuttered, chest expanding and deflating at a frantic rhythm. “It’s him...?”, he asked quietly, eyes lost.

Ian and Dogma exchanged another glance.

“Echo’s state is fragile”, Dogma started with gentle tone. “He is malnourished and we suspect—we _know_ he was experimented on”, he went on, sympathy clear in his eyes. “We can show you a live recording of him, if you want but... He has been asking for you, Fives. We think you should come here: for his own sake and yours.”

The ARC turned to Rex immediately, eyes wide and begging.

“ _Kriff_ , Fives: of course you can go!”, the Captain reassured him, gripping his shoulder. This time he wasn’t swatted again, and instead was pulled into a tight embrace. He held his brother as he sobbed with impossible hope on his shoulder. “You better go pack your things. You’ve got a long journey ahead.”

“Sir, yes sir!”, Fives broke off to salute, eyes watering.

He left the room skidding.

“...You really found him?”, Rex asked quietly, turning to them.

“It’s him, _vod_ ”, Ian nodded. “He’s safe with us.”

“Force”, he exhaled, dropping on a seat, hands going to hold his temples. “ _Force_ , we left him behind...”

“Rex. Rex!”, Dogma called, an authority in his voice that he had never managed before. “I read the reports. It wasn’t your fault, you hear me? It wasn’t your fault”, he walked closer to the communicator, leaning on the structure and looking sadly at his former Captain, whishing he could rest his hand on his arm, to offer comfort for him just as Rex had comforted Fives. “You didn’t know. You were rushed out of there. It wasn’t your fault, and now Echo is safe, okay?”

The 501st ’s Captain nodded minutely, but both 0thers knew it took a lot more than that to ease the guilt that hung heavily on all of their shoulders.

“Why don’t you come too, brother?”, Ian suggested softly. “Sounds like the sooner you get to talk to Echo, the better. I’m certain your Commander and General would cover for you. We plan on transferring him to the 501st as soon as he is ready to be moved, so it wouldn’t be more than a week and a half, tops.”

“I—“

They could clearly see in his eyes that he wanted to. He NEEDED to. Echo was a _vod’ika_ and he had thought him lost and it had been even more heart-breaking for Fives—

“I can’t... I—”

Dogma’s expression saddened. Ian barely managed to dial down the roll of his eyes as he grabbed his work datapad and made some quick verifications as Rex rattled on about responsibilities with an increasingly miserable voice.

“You are scheduled for supply deliveries for the next two weeks”, the Commander spoke up. “Commander Tano can cover for you. And I get that Fives needs to see Echo, but he won’t be able to stay with him all day. Somebody’s gotta take care of him too. Someone close to him.”

“I... I’ll think about it, sirs.”

“Alright. No shame in needing time either, okay, _vod_? You know better than us”, Dogma added gently.

Rex jerked his head in a nod.

“Thank you. Thank you... Thank your General too when she wakes up, okay? Tell her to rest up”, he added with a tiny, sad smile.

“Will do, brother. You rest easy too.”

 

The shuttle had barely touched the hangar and Fives was already barrelling out of it, stumbling as his feet met air. His face DID meet the floor, and he got up immediately, skidding, eyes wide as he searched frantically for the way to the medbay—

“Hey, _vod_ ”, Raven greeted: fast and practical. “This way.”

He sprinted away with all of his ARF might, the ARC hot on his heels.

“Fives! Wait!”, Tup called out, stepping out of the ship in a rush but more like a decent person, carrying his bag and Fives’.

“Would you like to see your bunks or do you rather follow him?”, Bubble asked as the younger trooper stumbled past him.

“I, uh”, he stuttered, coming to an abrupt stop and focus torn between the bags he was carrying, the breeze arisen by Fives’ and Raven’s dash and Bubble. “Yes, if I can drop our stuff—”

“I don’t”, Kix interrupted him, carrying his own bag. “I want to be in the medbay AN HOUR AGO.”

“Follow the trail of affronted people”, the 0ther gestured vaguely, unfazed.

In his haste, the medic didn’t even crinkle his nose at him. The two infantry troopers watched them go.

“Guess it’s a delicate moment, huh”, Bubble commented quietly.

“Yeah”, Tup replied, expression concerned.

“Is somebody else coming?”

“No. No: that’s all of us.”

“Oh. I was told perhaps Rex was coming too.”

“The Captain decided not to come. Said Echo and Fives needed the reunion to themselves.”

“I see. Well then: let’s get you settled so you can go join your brothers, yeah?”

 

“Here”, Raven skidded to a halt next to the door to the medbay and out of the way, door already opened.

“Echo!”, the ARC called, smashing himself against the frame of the door in his urgency.

“SSSHHHHHH!!!”, was the reply he got, accompanied by the angry glares of four medics.

Any other day he would have lowered his eyes and muttered an apology, but not today: not with the frantic beat of his heart and the state of hypervigilance that had assaulted him (more than usual) since that call, not with the way he hadn’t even been able to eat for almost ten hours because he gagged on his nerves, not with—

“Fives”, said an even voice, bringing his racing mind to the present.

“Shades”, he breathed out, just realising that the CMO was standing right in front of him.

“He’s this way”, he continued, softly brushing his arm to nudge him to follow him.

Together they left behind the front of the medbay, where minor injuries were treated. The deeper they went, the more Fives’ stomach dropped. The critically injured or ill were always at the bottom, where only the med staff reached.

“He woke up a couple of hours ago. Asked for you and got too worked up, so we had to put him under, but it should wear off soon. It’s important that he doesn’t get too agitated: he has only had water and nutrients through an IV, so he doesn’t have energy to spare. We hope that seeing you will help him understand that he is safe and allow him to truly rest.”

Fives could only nod along: he could feel his own pulse in his neck, his wrists, his abdomen. If he didn’t see Echo soon he was going to pass out from anxiety. They finally passed a curtain; only two beds occupied behind it. The ARC’s eyes registered Dani sleeping under a pink blanket, non-standard issue, but that barely registered.

He strode past Shades and towards the unmoving, horribly pale prone form. He reached out to his face, but paused mid-air, eyes training on the metal protruding from his skull.

“Echo...?”, he called, voice breaking and tears falling. “What did they do to you...?”, his fingers finally brushed against his brother’s cheek: warm, not cold, not cold, thanks the Force, not cold...!

Fives sunk to his knees beside the bed, hand drifting to grab Echo’s and gently guide it to his face.

“I’m here”, he mused, touch registering the bones in his batchmate’s hand, hearing trained on his slow breathing and eyes locked on his closed eyelids, hoping that they would open at any moment.

He felt a soft brush on his shoulder: Shades giving him a gentle squish.

“I’ll bring you a chair. Do you want anything else?”

Fives shook his head, pressing Echo’s hand harder against his cheek. Shades came back barely a minute after, carrying the chair he had promised plus a water pack and some crackers. The CMO decided to check on Ducky, just to give them more space. There wasn’t much to check, though. He heard voices at the front of the medbay, so he peeked behind the curtain.

“—scans that we did, we think attempting removal might be too risky at the moment. Even when he regains his strength, it might be too traumatic for him to agree to the surgery or... survive it”, Apollo was reporting to a very focused Kix.

“I want to speak to the medic that tended to him in the field”, he half-requested half-demanded, because he felt the urge to know all he could about Echo’s condition, but he also was very aware that the 0th’s medbay wasn’t his turf.

“Apple is currently off-duty”, Shades chimed in, walking up to them. “I personally sent him away once Echo was settled. His next turn his scheduled in about two hours, but perhaps you can intercept him in the mess hall before that. It’s nice seeing you, _vod_ ”, he added with a discreet smile, pulling the other medic into a hug.

Kix held tight to him, releasing a shaky breath before patting his back four times.

_We need to talk. About illegal things_ , the gesture said.

“Come, we can talk in my office”, Shades said as he broke off of him.

Apollo watched them go, fully aware of what was going on and knowing that if Shades needed help dealing with it, he would be called. He turned to a corner of the medbay, where the Deltas were hanging out around Sev.

“You guys know you can leave, right? You have been released and all?”

“Yeah”, Boss replied, but did not move.

“We know we’re done with the mission, but we haven’t really been dismissed by the General, so...”, Fixer started shrugging.

“We’re just lazing around”, Scorch completed.

“And I’m the excuse”, Sev added with a grumble, lying on his stomach on the bed as he waited for the new bacta patch to dry.

“Hm”, Apollo decided to not dig for more details, and instead turned to another newcomer.

 

“So—“, Shades started, once the office was secured and they seated.

“Why didn’t you get him out?!”, Kiss hissed angrily, careful to keep his voice low. “Echo should be light-years away by now, getting treated in a Separatist hospital, not in your medbay!”

Shades pressed his lips in a thin line, but made no attempt to interrupt his brother’s rant.

“—mind?! And you expect us to bring him back to the 501st, what are we going to do with him?! They are going to force us to send him to Kamino for decommission!”

“I’ve heard Skywalker and him were close. You think he would allow that?”, he asked, voice even.

Kix startled and blinked, thinking about it.

“...Not without a fight”, he admitted quietly. “But still! You could have _gotten him out_!”

“We don’t think he would have survived that”, Shades replied plainly.

Kix’s breath caught in his throat. He coughed it away, taking in air heavily.

“He was in bad shape and we hope having Fives by his side will make his recovery swifter. Venus and I had a long discussion about it and agreed to it.”

“What about Dani?”, Kix frowned.

“She passed out as soon as she got here: and dead or passed out people don’t get a say in the matter. Ship’s rules.”

“Okay”, he sighed slowly. “Guess it’s always improvising with you guys, huh?”

“Guess it is”, he shrugged with a half-smile before leaning forwards on the desk and placing a hand on Kix’s shoulder. “We’ll have you covered all the way, _vod_.”

“I kn—”

He was interrupted by a vicious coughing coming from the depths of the medbay. The CMOs locked eyes with each other before springing to action and barrelling out of the office. Apollo dashed past them, Tup lagging behind with insecure steps and eyes wide in fear. The Deltas hadn’t moved from their corner, knowing well what came from getting on a medic’s way, but their attention was also on the endless coughing.

“Kix! Shades!”, Fives called from behind the curtain, voice tight.

The medics were as tense as metal rods, dreading the hell that was going to be if they had to intubate Echo in his current condition—

They pushed the curtain aside only to realise the coughing came from right beside them, not where Fives was watching over his batchmate several rows of beds deeper into the room. They deflated with a sigh of relief, and Shades picked up a bedpan from under the bed Ducky was resting on.

“Spit it”, he nudged her softly, setting the recipient on her lap.

Dani hacked a glob of... something; the coughing finally easing.

“Water?”

She nodded groggily. Apollo turned to fetch the water without prompt.

“...Is everything alright?”, Tup asked carefully.

“False alarm”, Kix soothed him, but by then the younger’s attention was on the ARCs. “How are you feeling, General?”

She huffed in reply. She looked tired, but her eyes grew more alert.

“How long...?”, she croaked, before Apollo handed her the water.

“Fifteen hours”, Shades replied.

“New record”, she smiled mischievously.

“It’s not funny, dumbass”, the 0th’s CMO grumbled, only succeeding in making her smile even more. “New record on straight hours slept”, he explained to his colleague.

“I see.”

“General status?”, she asked, rubbing at her eyes.

“On medical leave.”

“Very funny...”

“All under control.”

She jerked her head abruptly, eyes fixing on Kix and Tup.

“You’re here!”, she said happily, eyes darting around until she found Fives, and went quiet.

“Something wrong?”, Shades prompted, noticing the sudden change.

“Nothing”, she assured him. “I just feel... weird. Like... can’t we give them more privacy? I’m... I’m imposing”, she added, voice low.

“No, you’re not”, Apollo replied, arching an eyebrow. “But unless you feel like fainting again, we can move you to the front. The Deltas are still here, for some reason.”

“Are they?”, she asked, cheerfulness back in her voice. “Cool. Let’s!”

The medic activated the hover function and detached the bed from the wall as the others stepped back so he could manoeuvre her. Dani caught Fives’ eyes for a fleeting moment, managing a small smile and a wave with her hand. The ARC offered her his own fleeting smile and a tiny wave with the hand that wasn’t holding Echo’s. He looked away, but she didn’t: eyes sad at the thought of what they were going through, wanting to offer comfort but fearing overstepping boundaries. So she leaned back on the bed and allowed herself to be wheeled away.

She would be called if she was needed.

 

Echo’s hand had twitched.

It was impossible that he had imagined it, because all of Fives’ focus had been on him ever since he had seen him. He almost leapt out of the chair, fingers gently squeezing his brother’s bony hand, trying to nudge him into awareness. A mumble escaped Echo’s lips, frown creasing.

“Echo?”, he asked, his tone desperately hopeful as he leaned closer, trying to make out what was he saying. He distantly felt a rustle behind him: Kix, Tup and Apollo standing at a distance, ready to help but giving Fives a chance to handle it on his own.

“N... No...”, came the slow words, the remnants of the sedatives making his tongue sluggish. “N-No more... Please...!”

His limbs jerked, but his hand was clasped between Fives’, his metal legs were too heavy for him to lift at the moment and the apparatus that was now his left hand was taped to the bed. Fives saw the reaction: knew how it felt to be weak and trapped, so he reached out and ripped the tape off, hands drifting to cup his batchmate’s cheeks and direct his barely focused gaze to his face.

“Echo”, he called out to him in a breath. “You’re safe, brother, it’s me, it’s Fives. Look at me, look at me...!”

“Fives!”, the other sobbed, though there was still no recognition in his eyes.

“Echo”, he repeated, expression pained as he shook his brother as much as he dared. “I’m here. Look at me in the eyes, come on, you can do it...! I’m here, I’m here...”

His thumbs brushed his cheekbones, touch slow and tender, allowing him for more movement but still holding his head. Echo’s eyes drifted less and less, breathing calming as he recognised a brother’s traits. And then they went to Fives’ right temple.

For a terrible moment, Echo stopped breathing.

“...Fives...?”

“Yes!”, he was quick to reply, smiling with trembling lips. “It’s me, brother! It’s me, I got you.”

“Fives...!”, he cried in relief, hand weakly reaching up to bring his batchmate close.

He leaned closer, closer, closer, until he just decided to roll onto the bed, on top of the non-standard issue blue blanket (not exactly 501st blue, but close, pretty close), and the two ARCs giggled like children and cried like men as they hugged each other.

The three spectators stepped back and to the other side of the curtain.

“Looks like it’s all taken care of”, Apollo reported to Dani with a warm smile.

Ducky returned a relieved smile, leaving her conversation with the Deltas on hold.

“I’m glad”, she said wholeheartedly, a tension that had been present on her shoulders dissipating.

It’s not as if it was going to be smooth sailing from then on, but at least they had a better start.

“Will you guys be hanging around? Have you been shown to your bunks?”

“They have, General”, Dogma walked in with a can of soda in hand. “Stop worrying”, and he placed the can on the bedside table. “For when you feel better.”

Dani sent a questioning look at Apollo’s way.

“It has a lot of sugar and that’s pretty much what you need”, the medic shrugged.

Before he had ended the sentence she had already cracked the can open and taking two big gulps.

“Careful with the gas! I don’t want you throwing up!”

She lowered the recipient obediently, assessing her stomach’s reaction.

“...I take it’s not the best moment to visit Echo?” the Captain asked meekly, going to stand next to Tup. His brother slid an arm over his shoulders, pulling him close.

“Get in line, _vod_ ”, he said with a joking demanour.

“They’re both asleep”, Shades confirmed after peeking behind the curtain. “I would let them be for now. You can come back tomorrow to wrestle Fives away.”

The 501sters smiled, but it was clear in their eyes that they knew what was coming. No matter the age: all clones had experience in taking care of their brothers. Didn’t mean it wasn’t taxing.

“Yeah. Guess we should rest now that we can”, Tup shrugged weakly, letting his arm slip from Dogma’s shoulders.

“You go. I want to review Echo’s med report first”, Kix said.

Shades exhaled loudly and rolled his eyes, making his way into his office to retrieve the data.

“General”, Dogma acknowledged her with a nod.

She nodded back, hiding a yawn with the back of her hand.

“I... I’m glad the mission was a success. But please refrain from exhausting yourself next time.”

Dani had smiled at the first part, but she had smiled even wider at the second because _did he just DARE to scold me?????_ She didn’t get a chance to inquire about it, though, because the Captain turned away.

“Say, Tup: are you up for some sabbac?”

The other blinked with honest astonishment.

“You? Playing sabbac?”, he asked with an incredulous smile. “I wouldn’t miss it for anything!”

At his reply, Dogma smiled back, and this time it was him who slid an arm around Tup’s shoulders, guiding him towards the door. He paused for a moment before crossing the frame, turning again to Luna, who was watching them with amused eyes.

“Get well soon, Dani.”

Her grin was only witnessed by the Deltas.

 

When Echo’s mumbling and shifting woke him up, Fives shushed him back to sleep, just as he had done the last two times. Every time it took him less to recognise him and calm down, so that was an improvement. He hugged his brother back, telling himself that all was real, feeling Echo’s skin and warm breath against his neck, and slept with him.

 

“Morning!”, a hushed but cheerful voice greeted him when he woke up on his own accord.

Fives blinked up, eyes focusing on Dani. She was dressed in loose, warm clothes, hair messy and flattened in weird spots where she had leaned her head against the pillow. She held a tray with food in her hands.

“Breakfast”, she provided, holding the tray out to him.

He sat up slowly, careful to not disturb Echo, and settled on the edge of the bed, taking the tray and leaning it on his lap. He studied the meal for a moment: a fruit he had never seen before, a small brik of blue milk and another with meiloorun juice and a couple of fried eggs. A pretty standard on-board meal, but a welcomed one, nonetheless, even more after skipping lunch and dinner the day before.

“Thanks”, he said hastily before digging in.

Dani sat on another bed, opposite to him, legs crossed on the mattress as she jumped from watching Fives eat with an amused smile to watching Echo with absent eyes.

“You’re not eating?”, he asked in between chewing.

“Already have”, she replied without looking at him. “I didn’t drink my juice, if you want it”, she added.

“Are you _allowed_ out of bed?”, he pressed a bit more.

She turned slowly to him, mischievous smile spreading.

“I am. I’ll let you know that I have medical permission to pester you as long as I don’t leave the medbay”, she explained very proudly, tilting her chin up.

“So you are charged with bully me out of here, huh?”

“Not really. I’m just bored”, she shrugged, smugness replaced by honesty. “Recovering from exhaustion means not doing much and, as I said, I’m not allowed to leave the medbay until tomorrow, and if you are going to be around here...”

“I get it”, Fives nodded. “Medical leave sucks.”

“Well, no. I do enjoy a chance to rest, but man... I’m gonna ask somebody to fetch me things to paint or read, I dunno.”

She stood up to do that, but she went strangely rigid, eyes wide but unseeing, only to sway and fall back on the bed.

“You okay?”, Fives asked, setting the tray away.

“...Just got dizzy”, Luna replied after a moment, her vision clearing and drifting again to Echo’s peaceful slumber before blinking, as if shaking herself away from deep thoughts. “Uhm. Anyways. How’re you doing?”

It was implied in the way she had voiced the question that she wasn’t asking for his life in general, but a very particular thing.

“...It feels impossible”, he breathed out, turning to check that yes, his batchmate was still there, still breathing. He reached for his limp hand, intending to warm it up a bit. “How did you find him?”

“... Remember when Hardcase died? I came to find you and I told you I had felt it?”.

“...Yeah”, he replied quietly.

“I didn’t feel it with Echo. So I had some contacts look for him. We retrieved him as fast as we could.”

Fives frowned.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“That I hadn’t felt him die, or that I eventually got intel on his location?”, she asked carefully.

“Both!”, he hissed lowly.

“Because what if I had been wrong? What if I hadn’t felt him die just because we were too far away from each other, or I had missed it because I was focused on something else? What if I had told you that we had a location, but he had died during the retrieval? I’m sorry, Fives, but I couldn’t bring myself to give you good news when I wasn’t sure of them myself”, she shook her head slowly, avoiding vertigo.

The ARC took a deep breath and let it out slowly, deflating.

“Alright. Alright”, he exhaled. “What’s next, then?”

“Recovery”, Ducky shrugged. “Basically let him rest and get used to drinking and eating again. Help him stand on his own, walk. And from then on, we’ll see.”

Fives did not like that ‘we’ll see’. It was clear in his face.

“Hey. It’s gonna be okay”, she added softly, and would have rested a hand on his shoulder if the distance hadn’t been too great. “Nobody is going to bother you here.”

“We can’t stay here forever”, he mused, eyes going to the floor.

“Echo’s recovery is not going to last ‘forever’. We’re going to do things nice and slow, and we’ll all be okay.”

It was more of a gentle encouragement than a confident statement, and Fives wasn’t fully sure if it was directed to him or herself. But perhaps, for now, that was enough.

 

Kix took the next turn at Echo’s bedside as Tup nudged Fives to go for a walk and, perhaps, catch some sleep, even if he had to sleep in the medbay to keep his anxiety at bay. Echo woke up and got restless at his batchmate’s absence, but was quickly convinced that he would be back soon.

“We’re just making sure that he takes care of himself too, _vod_ ”, Kix shushed him gently, softly patting his hand.

He nodded slowly in acknowledgement, taking a deep breath. The dark bags under his eyes were a terrible contrast to the paleness of his skin, but despite seeming exhausted, he blinked his eyes open again, finding Dani sitting on a bed and staring back.

“Hi there”, she greeted softly, waving a hand.

“Hi”, he croaked back. “...Where... where are we...?”, he asked, suddenly realising that he didn’t know.

“The medbay aboard _The Unruly_. We’re waiting for you to get better before we go back home, yeah? Back to _The Resolute_ ”, Kix answered.

“...Okay”, came the whispered reply, his eyelids dropping.

His breath evened out, already back asleep.

Kix brushed his thumb over his knuckles, fingers clenching and unclenching in what Dani had learned to identify as hesitation; so she waited for him to get over it. Soon enough, Kix turned to her with jerky movements, doubt clear in his eyes.

“I... I hate to ask for more when you have already done so much, but... Couldn’t you help him? With your Force-healing?”

Ducky’s expression saddened.

“I’m not allowed to use it until tomorrow, at the very least. To make sure I don’t burn myself out again. When I can, though, you can count on me to help any way I can, but... I don’t think there’s much I can do to improve his condition, since the main problem is malnourishment”, she explained, voice hushed.

“I see”, he whispered back, gaze dropping.

Luna frowned at him in concern. Unlike Fives, Kix was in her reach, so she squeezed his shoulder gently.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just... worried. About Echo, about the 501st, about what comes after...”

“Shades told me about your concerns. I’ll speak to Anakin myself if you think that will help, though I don’t think it will be necessary.”

The CMO nodded, but didn’t seem convinced.

“It’s okay, Kix. If sending him back with you is not an option, we will get him out. Venus is already getting an Emergency Extraction ready in case we need it. And it includes Fives.”

He startled a bit, blinking at her.

“You think he would go?”

“To be with Echo, now that they are finally reunited? Sure”, she replied without a doubt, but paused because something in Kix’s tone wasn’t entirely right. “Why? Doesn’t Five know about... the enterprise?”

“No!”, he would have shouted if they were in private. “Force, no: Fives is the WORST at lying, he can never know!”

Dani’s expression saddened at that.

“Unless you decided it’s time to make it public knowledge”, he added to ease the guilt.

She gave him a sad smile, huffing a bit, overwhelmed by the idea of claiming the clones as her family in front of the galaxy.

“It’s... It’s okay if you don’t want to do that. You know?”

Ducky startled, eyes wide before narrowing in frustration and anger.

“Don’t say that. You are my family and I want everybody to know, but not if it’s not safe for you guys.”

“Is it _ever_ going to be safe?”, he asked quietly, eyebrow arched and eyes sad.

“Once the war is over”, she nodded curtly.

“Doesn’t look like this will have an end, kiddo...”

“It does. It will”, she assured him: a cadence that left no room for doubt and a gaze that felt as solid as the promise that those words held.

Kix tried to see deeper into her eyes, because he knew that tone, that confidence. It was the same she had when she assured CMO’s from other battalions that the 0th would take care of their critically injured patients; so that meant that she knew something that he didn’t.

“Dani, what are yo—”

“We’re back!”, Tup greeted cheerfully. Kix’s and Luna’s angry glares and fingers pressed against their lips made his face cringe apologetically. “We’re back!”, he repeated, as cheerful but hushed.

Fives blinked tiredly, checking on Echo. Dani patted the mattress she was sitting on, getting his attention.

“Come on, I have been keeping it warm for you”, she grinned, and moved to another spot.

Fives snorted, but didn’t complain or try to refuse as he slipped under the covers. A deep green blanket was thrown over him.

Kix attempted to make eye contact with Dani again, but she was avoiding his gaze with an impressive ease. When she locked eyes with him to loop him into the conversation, he got lost in his reply.

 

“Okay, _vod_. Level one: broth”, Apple made his entrance with the warm bowl held between his hands.

Echo sighed from where he was sitting up in bed, but followed the recipient with his eyes in interest. It had been two days since he and Fives had been reunited, and after spending most of the day before sleeping, they had decided to give it a try to eating again, to help them gauge what his stomach could handle. Dani had been cleared from medical not long ago, under orders to not Force-run, not Force-parkour, not Force-cloak and keep her Force-sight sweeps at minimum; and was now off to do Force-knows-what. Nothing she was forbidden to do, with any luck.

It was Kix’s turn to rest, and he had meant to go to sleep to the bunks, but once he had known they were going to try and take that small step in Echo’s recovery he had chosen a bed in the medbay, and was currently wrapped in the deep green blanket, drooling a bit. But he was ready to wake up if he was needed, really!

Laa’ka had come a while ago to try and get Fives to spar with him, but had finally taken Tup along. Dogma had come to visit too, and after a good handful of agonizing seconds of hesitation, he had decided to stay for a while. Shades was around too, but was taking care of Match’s sprained wrist.

“Do you want to try to hold it?”, Apple asked before anything.

“Just... put it on my lap”, Echo decided, seeing that his left ‘hand’ would do great at keeping the bowl steady.

The medic did as he had requested and took a step back.

“You guys tell me if there’s any problem. Remember to eat slowly, and you don’t need to finish it, alright?”

“We got it, _vod_. Thank you”, Fives nodded to him.

Apple rolled his eyes and turned as if he had something else to do in the vicinity.

Echo was cradling the bowl with his good hand, the apparatus on the other leaning against a side of it to make sure it stayed in place. He took a deep breath, the smell of the light broth incredibly strong and... not as appealing as he thought it would be. Regardless, he filled the spoon and sipped at it.

“Well?”, Fives asked, shoulders rolling in badly-conceived nervousness.

“Nothing special”, Echo shrugged. “Feels good, but I’m not too hungry.”

“That’s good”, Apple hummed. “Just don’t push yourself too much. Call me if I’m needed”, he reminded them before going back to the front of the medbay.

Echo drank a couple of scoops and gave it a rest, suddenly reminded that he would have a _very_ bad time if he were to vomit. His stomach felt... a bit funny, but not horrible, so that could be it just trying to adjust. He looked up and locked eyes with Fives, who gave him a faint smile before diving back into the mandala he was painting. Dogma was doing some paperwork, glancing up every now and then as if taking stock of the situation. They knew how it felt to be down and the feeling of being the centre of attention even when what you were doing wasn’t much. Some liked it, some despised it: so they had been grateful when the 0th medics had handed them distractions for all.

The black market aboard _The Unruly_ was something else, huh. Candies, painting tools, holobooks and extra blankets and pillows were common everywhere, but Echo had been handed baggy, warm clothes that the GAR had definitively _not made_ and that other 0thers wore when on downtime, presumably. He wasn’t going to complain. Being draped in something soft and thick was a welcomed change, preferable to being stark naked and having too see all the metal protruding from his body, that’s for sure. Maybe he could exchange something to keep the clothes...? Not that he had anything material to offer, but for what he understood of his knew left hand, it could access ports, ergo data, ergo information, and intel could also be currency, right?

So yeah, that was the plan at the moment.

 

“—didn’t tell me?!”

“Hi, Anakin”, Dani deadpanned.

“Nor ME?!”

“Hi, Ahsoka.”

“Don’t ‘poker face’ us!”, Skywalker growled, but wasn’t very intimidating, since he was currently like 12 hours of travel away. “You OWE us an explanation!”

Ducky sighed, knowing that he was right, but still tired of repeating it over and over.

“We found Echo. He is recovering in our medbay.”

“Yeah, that’s what Rex told us. What we want to know is _why_ didn’t you tell us right away!”

She diverted her eyes for a moment, like an insecure child, but the mirage was gone as soon as it came.

“I don’t know”, it was a lame reply, but an honest one. “I was just thinking of reuniting Fives and Echo and then I passed out and when I woke up they were having a moment and... I just wanted them to have some peace and quiet. Maybe I thought they wouldn’t get it if their bosses knew what was going on. I dunno”, she shrugged.

“You thought what? That we were going to separate them?”, Ahsoka asked, hurt or angry or both, Luna couldn’t exactly say at the moment.

“I don’t know...!”, she replied with a distressed whine, tears flowing as her chest spasmed.

Master and Padawan startled, exchanging a glance.

“Skyguy! You made her cry!”

“Me?! You threw the last reproach!”

She wanted nothing but to hang up and be alone. Her head hurt, she was having emotional backlash because of the whole situation and the reproval had been the last straw. She wanted to be alone but she wanted Shades but Shades was busy with Echo and Ian was busy too and Unruly wasn’t there and mom wasn’t there and dad wasn’t there—

“Luna. Luna!”, Anakin’s voice finally came through. “Take deep breaths, okay? We’re not that angry...”, he sounded and looked desperate to calm her down. “Has something else happened? Are you in trouble?”

She shook her head in reply, lips pressed into a thin line, and pulled up her knees and leaned her head on them, hiding her face as she sobbed.

“Do you want me to call Ian? I can call him if you want”, Ahsoka offered.

Ducky didn’t move.

“I’m gonna call him, okay? If you don’t say no I’m gonna call him”, she waited for a beat, two, three, four, five, and the other General still didn’t acknowledge her. “I’m gonna call him”, she repeated, this time to her Master.

“You do that, Snips”, Anakin nodded quietly. “Hey, Dani, what’s wrong? Come on, you can talk to me. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

But she just kept on crying, sobbing too much to speak.

“Ian says we keep trying until somebody gets to her. Then we hang up and talk to him”, Ahsoka whispered her report.

“Okay. Ah, geez. Uhm... Is it because we yelled at you? We’re sorry, but you should have told us about Echo right away, that’s not going to change. AUCH!”, he yelped when his padawan elbowed him. “What?! Do YOU want to give it a try?”

The togruta actually cringed at that at first, but seemed to shake off her insecurity and turned to the projector.

“Mast—Gener—Dani”, she seemed to decide, and seemed quite pleased with her choice. “It’s okay. You were doing your best and you didn’t have any ill intentions, we are sure about it. It’s just... war takes a toll on all of us, I guess. It’s good to let go of the pain and fear. But we will be alright. We will win”, she ended, voice soft, and turned to smirk at her Master in a _how’s that, huh?!_ fashion.

Anakin scoffed, but his reply was drowned by the door to Luna’s office sliding open.

“Hey, kiddo”, Pedal greeted, walking up to her to rest a hand on her shoulder. Ducky turned and hugged his waist, burring her face on his belly. The pilot’s hand drifted to draw soothing circles on her back. “I’ll take it from here, sirs. Thank you”, he nodded to the Jedis, and hung up himself.

“Well. That was uncomfortable”, Skywalker hummed, nervously scratching the back of his head.

“I had never seen a General cry before”, Tano mused in mild astonishment.

“...We better call Commander Ian and see what’s all of this about.”

“Oh, no need to call. I didn’t even put him on hold”, she said, pointing at the totally not blinking, totally not on hold call.

“Sirs”, Ian’s voice prompted.

“Commander. Is... Is Dani doing alright?”, the other General asked shyly.

“Things pile up, sir. She just needs some help pulling herself together. We have it under control”, Ian assured them.

“Alright, then... Can you tell us about Echo’s status?”

“Yes sir. We intend on keeping him with us for recovery until he is able to walk on his own: should be about a week if everything goes well, two tops; before sending him back to you.”

“Hm”, Skywalker nodded and seemed to be holding off an awkward question, visibly steeling himself for it. “Is he... fit for battle?”

Ian already expected that question.

“I’m not qualified to say that, sir. But he _is_ fit for duty.”

That caught both General and Commander’s attention.

“Tell us more.”

 

Echo had retched his first thick soup, but managed the second with just some minor nausea. He was looking better: colour was returning to his skin and despite still being too thin, his bones weren’t so easy to notice. His routine revolved around waking up, eating, chatting, painting, stretching his muscles in preparation for standing up, eating again, chatting some more, reading, convincing Fives to go for a walk or a spar, receiving the occasional visit (it almost looked like the whole 0th was taking turns to keep him distracted, really), eating some more, and sleeping. Fives joined him on the bed. Nobody even gave weird looks at that. The clones knew how it was, and Luna seemed to just let them be.

It was a novelty when a group of six trailed into the medbay, carrying two packs of soda each.

“Sabbac 0th style?”, Venus proposed, raising a pack into the air.

“That ‘0th style’ part unsettles me.”

“Give it a try, Fives! I played it with Dogma: it adds thrill to it”, Tup explained cheerfully.

“Dogma plays sabbac now?”

“He does”, Commander Ian nodded, rearranging the unoccupied beds to form a circle around Echo and dumping her soda packs on the one he claimed for himself. “Who’s in?”

“I am”, Tup said immediately, getting up from his chair to settle on a bed next to Feather.

“I’ll watch you play for the moment”, Echo shrugged, a bit too tired to participate right away.

“You guys gonna play? I want to be the Drunk Snitch!”, Shades piped up, entering dramatically past the curtain.

“Are you off duty?”, Ian asked without looking up from getting the cards ready.

“I’m offended!”, the CMO gasped. “Everybody knows that when you have less than ten minutes left it’s as if you are already done.”

“Some of us have to do paperwork 24/7, and some of us are Shades”, the Commander shook his head, lips pressed into a tight line to try and disguise his smile.

“I’ll switch you any time, mate: you get to go to the battlefield, write med reports and do prostate exams.”

“Never mind. Forget that and you can be the Drunk Snitch.”

“Just like in the simulations”, the medic mellowed.

“I take the Drunk Snitch is the 0th‘s special?”, Echo asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Oh, yeah: a little touch we added so Dani could play with us. She can’t win for shit so she just ended up inventing a new role and it stuck”, Match snickered.

“Is she _that_ bad?”, Fives asked, already giggling.

“Oh, no, no, no: she is quite a good shot! It’s just that everyone here counts cards except her”, Venus completed.

A cacophony of snorts and ugly laughter filled the medbay.

“What does she do, then?”, Tup asked, drying tears of laughter, for a good change.

“She’s the Drunk Snitch: walks around peeking at everybody’s cards and doing faces. Is she reacting for real? Has she any idea what is she looking at? Is she reacting in the opposite way on purpose? Nobody knows—”

“I know”, Shiver interrupted smugly. “ _I_ have been watching her for the last 65 matches, and I have cracked the code.”

“ _Nobody_ has cracked the code”, Match shook his head. “We decided calling it the Drunk Snitch because that way anyone could be it, if we called it the Chaotic Bastard it would be more accurate but only Dani could be it!”

“I’m telling you I did!”, the trooper protested. “Next time I’m gonna win the round for sure!”

“Be a pal and share the knowledge if you do”, Ian snickered, handing out the cards.

“I mean: I know you are good with algorithms, Shiver, but enough to de-code a person?”, Venus shrugged awkwardly.

“You speak as if she were as complicated as an ecosystem. Everyone follows a solid logic, even if it only seems logic for the person in question. You just gotta know what somebody really wants: and there you have it”, he explained cockily.

That cost him a warning glare from Ian and another from Venus. Shades glanced at him too, but decided that two glares were suspicious enough. No need to add a third and let on that there was something else going on in there.

Shiver bit his tongue and backed off.

“I’ll show you how to decrypt a person...”, they muttered to himself with a slight pout. “Come on, guys, let’s get on it!”

Shiver won that round.

“Let’s switch Drunk Snitch. Shades’ getting too old for this”, Match smirked.

“EXCUSE ME?!”

“Anyways. Echo, do you want to give it a try?”, he continued.

The ARC startled a bit at being addressed. He had enjoyed the banter that had come with the game, but hadn’t really taken part of it, dozing off every now and then. But the implications of playing the role hadn’t escaped him.

Being the Drunk Snitch meant standing up and walking around.

“So this was a trap, huh”, he deadpanned.

“Only if you want to try it”, Shades huffed the remind.

Echo sighed, weighing his options. He would have to get up sooner or later, and... yeah, perhaps that playful ambient was better for his first attempt than having his brothers wholly focused on him.

“Alright. Alright. I’ll try to stand.”

The whole room seemed pleased by his decision, most of the players cheering for him.

He huffed a laugh as he sat up, slowly manoeuvring his legs himself. The medics had told him they were completely functional: just awaiting for him to have enough strength to use them. Fives hovered nearby, ready to help if he gave the word. Echo reached up for his shoulder for purchase, and his brother held onto his arm to help him up.

Slowly, and with a couple of huffs of effort, Echo stood, leaning on Fives’ shoulders and panting a bit; the motion of being upright dizzying him.

“You alright?”, Fives asked quietly.

“Yeah”, he croaked, closing his eyes against the disorientation and working on his breathing. “Just... need a minute...”

“Hold on as much as you can, but don’t hesitate to sit back down when you need it. Rushing won’t do you any favours. The goal right now is to be steady when you stand. We will worry about walking later”, Shades explained soothingly.

“And here I thought I was supposed to be your Drunk Snitch, guys”, Echo huffed a laugh, eyes still closed.

“Hey, now you’re high enough that you can see our cards. Well, most of them”, Venus piped up, gesturing to a half of the circle they were forming. “It’s your first time, so we’ll go easy on you”, she added smugly.

“Geez, thanks”, he panted, and tried to open his eyes to see if the world had stopped spinning.

“Need to sit down?”, Fives whispered into his ear.

“Not yet”, the other grunted, clenching his teeth and trying to focus.

“Brother...”, his voice was a pleading warning.

“I can do this”, Echo would have barked if 80% of his focus hadn’t been on stay standing.

“Nobody says you can’t”, his batchmate continued as the others politely immersed themselves on small talk. “You have been standing now for two minutes for the first time in months. I’d say you are doing quite well. Give yourself a break.”

Echo’s grip on Fives tensed stubbornly. Fives was already sighing, putting together another argument, but Echo beat him to it.

“Okay”, he exhaled. “Okay, I need to sit down.”

“Alright”, Fives breathed in relief, and gently helped him to lower himself onto the bed. “Tell me if you wanna give it another try when you are ready, okay?”

Echo nodded without really looking at him, and closed his eyes.

 

It was hard, but not impossible.

First he needed to get rid of his ever watching companions. Wasn’t too complicated, since they took turns to keep him company and now that he was looking (and frankly, _feeling_ ) better, they were easy to convince to go for a stroll or grab something from the mess hall. No: the hard part was slipping past the medics on the front. Shades had the habit of sheltering inside his office when there were no patients to check on. Apple went out every now and then: to pick up fresh fruit, for what he had understood; but Apollo was ever watching. If he had nothing to do, he sat on a stool in the front and read there until somebody walked in because they had sprained something.

So he waited late into the night cycle for Apollo to leave. Shades poked his head to ask if everything was alright before retreating to his office. Then, he convinced Kix to go and check whatever was making him so anxious, promising that he would go to sleep soon and didn’t need company all the time anymore. The medic gave him an stressed yet grateful smile and slipped away, promising to sneak him some candy now that he was already started with solid food again.

So it was because of that that Echo was slowly making his way out of the medbay and towards a small lounge that he had heard was close by (some sort of waiting room set for those who had a friend in surgery and were waiting on news from them) at an ungodly hour of the night, but that would not be considered too late by a twenty-something years old that used that time to read and relax.

He leaned on the corridor’s wall as soon as he was out of the medbay, letting out the heavy huff that he had been holding. He didn’t get why he was so tired already: he had been walking around the medbay, sometimes with help, sometimes on his own, albeit under the watchful eyes of his anxious brothers and the cautious medics. At least the hallways around the medbay were empty: for what he understood, the 0th was in the middle of a paperwork and intel gathering frenzy, not a battle-ready one; so he took the chance to take a brake and lean his full weight on the wall. He could feel the wave of dizziness get worse, thought, so he hurried to steady himself, but one of his metallic knees buckled—

Gentle arms embraced him from behind, slipping up to his armpits as he fell but holding him there before the person behind him shifted so he could kneel down.

“You okay?”, asked an anxious voice.

“Dani...?”, he panted, vision focusing on the General as she shifted to crouch in front of him, a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

“Yeah”, she replied, softly gripping Echo’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get you to a bed, yeah?”, she continued, and made to slip her arms under his knees and shoulders.

“No!”, he jerked away, startling Ducky, who backed off and blinked at him in surprise. Echo closed his eyes, not in the mood to bare her stare. “I just—I’m sick of being in there. Please”, he pleaded, leaning his head against the wall to fight against the nausea.

No reply came when he expected a reproval or a forcibly calm voice to convince him of what was better for him: he didn’t know if it was because she had said nothing or because all he could hear was his own breathing.

“Okay”, came the hesitant but willing to bet on him reply. “Where were you heading to?”

“The... The waiting room”, he said, eyes still closed and eyebrows scrunched together.

“Do you want me to carry you there? Help you walk? Or just keep an eye on you?”, she offered.

Echo didn’t answer immediately, evaluating his own state and the options he had been given. Truth be told: he didn’t feel like he could make it to wherever the room was if he was already on the floor, but perhaps he would be able to walk back once he had rested.

“...Carry”, he finally decided, feeling a bit bad since he had just refused for her to pick him up and now he was asking her to do just that.

“Gotcha. Tell me if I’m moving too quickly”, she nodded, and repeated the motions to pick him up in bridal style.

The elevation made him dizzy all over again and he gasped. Luna stood completely still, waiting for him to get his bearings.

“I’m alright”, he mused, hesitantly resting his head on her chest, a bit uncomfortable at the possibility that he may touch a place considered intimate.

But Dani didn’t tense up or said anything, just got moving. There was... something about the way she walked, a difference that he noted after a lifetime of being carried only by his brothers: she didn’t sport their brisk, military pace. Oh, she surely had learnt that way of walking when training on Kamino, but it hadn’t been drilled into her like it had been with them: she had probably just pretended that way of moving until she didn’t have the trainers breathing down on her neck anymore. And this was it, he guessed, her pace: a fluid rhythm that barely jostled him, or that at least made a bit more comfortable being carried. Maybe she was using the Force to do that, he wondered distantly. It was easy to forget that she was a Force-user: with her lightsaber always hidden and barely used and her whole behaviour, so different from the Jedi but not malicious like the Sith.

A door swishing open startled him out of his thoughts, reminding him brusquely of the nausea assaulting him. The steps that had almost lulled him to sleep turned into a brisk pace, setting him down quickly on a couch before he could start gagging.

Oh, _kriff_ , he was really going to puke then and there—

A hand rested over his revolting stomach and another brushed his temple, and suddenly he was able to swallow down the bile.

“Breath, Echo. You’ve got this”, she encouraged him gently.

He inhaled sharply through his nose and exhaled slowly through his mouth, repeating the process until the nausea receded completely. The hand on his stomach slipped away, but the one on his head kept caressing the newly spurting black hair. He heard a thump, and turned his head to find Dani sitting on her ass on the floor, features scrunching in a quick succession of thought and realisation as she pulled her hand away.

“Sorry. I didn’t ask”, she said apologetically.

“No, no, it’s fine... As long as you don’t touch... the implants”, he forced himself to complete, diverting his eyes.

The fingers returned to massage his head.

Dani was biting her tongue, weighing the pros and cons of asking ‘how’re you doing?’, because I don’t know, it didn’t feel like a good moment to ask that, though she craved the answer whatever it was.

“What were you doing, wandering around at this hour?”

She arched an eyebrow at him.

“Okay, okay, I get it”, Echo sighed, almost rolling his eyes.

Luna sighed too, but hers was guilty enough for him to look at her again.

“You know this Force-sight thing I do where I can pinpoint where people is? I do compulsory sweeps. It’s a tic. Anyways: I had this one and I noticed you weren’t in the place where you have been for the last days and that there was no one with you, and I kinda panicked slash got worried, so I came to check. Sorry. I really try to not do this shit because I’m aware it’s hella invasive and rude, but I got _really_ anxious and—I’m sorry”, she repeated, lowering her eyes in shame and retreating her hand to chew at her nails.

“Well. I did need help”, he shrugged, because yeah: that was creepy, but he could also imagine the anxiety that would overwhelm him if he was aware that Fives was in a place and he did a check expecting him to be right there just to discover that he wasn’t anymore. “Thank you, by the way.”

“You’re welcome”, she smiled meekly, still keeping her hands to herself.

“I mean, about all. I’ve been told you led the mission, but... we hadn’t have a chance to talk about that.”

“Oh. With Delta Squad, yes. I didn’t want to stress you out while you were recovering and all, but if you have questions I’m okay with answering them”, she said slowly, scratching the short hair on the back of her head and looking at him with those big, familiar eyes that seemed to hold no ill intent.

Echo takes a deep breath, putting his thoughts in order and steeling himself.

“How did you find me?”

“I have contacts on Separatist space. Something about your supposed death didn’t feel right, so I sent the word out to look for you. The reply with your location came three weeks ago.”

“What did your contact get from helping me?”, he asked, brows furrowed in confusion. “You didn’t sell them intel. DID YOU?!”

“Prrrrrrfffff! No!”, she laughed, considering her answer. “Sex, Echo. We both got sex”, she grinned.

He was rendered mute, eyes wide.

“You—“, he managed to articulate.

“Enjoyed it greatly. YOU don’t want to keep going that way. Ask another question.”

He blinked his astonishment away, eyes going strangely dark as he curled his hand into a fist on his lap.

“The ones who did this to me...?”, he gulped.

“Dead”, Dani replied dryly, the warmth in her eyes momentarily swept away and replaced with cold stone. “We blew them up alive.”

...Maybe he didn’t need to know that the Skakoans had died of fear because she had wanted them to die that way.

“I got blown up and survived”, he scoffed bitterly.

“Followed by a 100 metres fall?”

“...Okay, I’ll buy that”, he tried to smile, but wasn’t very convincing. Ducky tilted her head, gathering courage to ask further and do her best to help him manage his feelings, but Echo changed subject: “You got some muscle power packed in there”, he commented.

It was a lame move, but he deserved a brake, so she decided to roll with it.

“Yeah, right? I got it from ARC training.”

“You tell me”, he chuckled. “But it was totally worth it.”

“I think it was more meaningful to you guys than me. I mean: you wanted to become ARC troopers. To me it was just another step on my way to General.”

“Why do you say that? Isn’t that what you wanted?”, he frowned.

“Not really”, she admits with a little shrug, trying to decide if it would be safe to voice all of her thoughts. “It’s more of a means to an end to me.”

There’s a moment of silence as Echo tries to make sense of her words, emanating confusion and worry at her slightly traitorous statements.

“I’m trying to find my father, you know”, she continues, voice low, before he can start panicking. “Being a General gives me resources that I wouldn’t have if I stayed a civilian, so... That doesn’t mean I don’t care about the war, though!”, she adds quickly, glancing at him before lowering her eyes again to her restless hands. “I want it to end and I will do everything in my power to keep everyone alive until then. It’s just...”, she hushed, gulped down, tried to turn her feelings into words. “It’s not what I really want. I don’t want my life to revolve around war”, she says, and meets Echo’s eyes again.

His eyes are softer now, less afraid.

“What will you do when the war ends?”, he asks quietly.

Ducky flinches a bit, because she knows that kind of question is only asked among clones when somebody is dying and they need to keep them conscious. A grounding question, but one that heavily relies on imagination and very few think to be worth asking. By the way he asks it, it feels like he believes she has a better chance to see the end of the war, and is honestly curious to know what will she do if he is gone or they part ways for any other reason.

“Reunite with my girlfriend and my son”, she started, and a smile twitched on Echo’s lips, mirroring hers. “Keep looking for my dad. Try to get to know my uncles better”, she continues, her smile turning mischievous for a split second, though the ARC couldn’t figure out why. “Maybe explore the galaxy a bit. Find a nice place and settle down, maybe get back to studying biology.”

“Sounds like something worth living for”, he mused quietly.

Dani turned her head to him.

“Why so sad?”, he asked with a sad smile of his own. “We’re talking about happy things, yeah?”

“You all deserve better”, she said, sounding too much like a little child. “What will you do when the war ends?”, she asked, because she wanted him to believe that he would make it too.

“I don’t know”, he replied eventually. “Whatever Fives decides he wants to do, I guess”, he added with a distant smile.

“You guys could tag along with me! And see the galaxy until you make up your minds.”

“I’ll hold you to that”, Echo chuckled.

Ducky’s own smile twisted in a horrifying way until it turned into a yawn.

“Someone should be in bed”, the ARC teased.

“Says the one that escaped from his”, she scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“Okay, I get it. You are worst than Kix...”

“Nonsense. Kix is the best”, she retorted, very serious about it.

“Yeah. Yeah, he is”, he hummed, suddenly feeling very grateful of having his brothers close. “I think... I think I’m ready to go back to the medbay. If you could keep an eye on me...”

“Sure”, Dani nodded, standing up. “Bedtime for all”, she yawned again.

 

Fives still kept a very close watch on Echo as he made his way towards the landing ship. There was a small congregation of people there, waiting to wave goodbye. Tup was saying his farewells to his new friends. Kix seemed content that Echo was finally back under his care again.

Their pick-up was finally here.

The ship’s ramp lowered, and Skywalker started walking down it, but a blur of orange barrelled past him right towards Echo.

“Commander!”, Fives tried to stop her, standing between the two of them, but Ahsoka slithered past him only to exponentially slow down and end up hugging Echo’s waist.

“I’ve missed you SO MUCH!”, she cried, tightening her grip.

“Me too, kid”, he hugged her back, his stance pleasantly stable.

When he had asked what could he bargain in exchange for the light grey hoodie and black sweatpants he had been given Shades had looked at him as if he were crazy, going: _what are you saying? Those are already yours_ , and there he was, wearing the second set he had been given because _you can’t always wear the same shirt and pants, mate, you have to wash them!_

He perked up, seeing the blue pattern of Rex’s armour right beside their General. Dani appeared next to him, arms crossed and expression pleased as they went to meet each other.

“Dani”, Skywalker nodded, offering a hand to shake.

“Anakin”, she nodded back, playfully gripping his hand.

“Echo”, Rex greeted, _almost_ fidgeting.

“Captain”, he greeted back, and Ahsoka very politely slipped away from him. It didn’t even take him a second to shot his arms out and pull Rex into a hug.

“I—I’m sorry, brother, I’m so, so sorry—”

“It’s okay, Rex”, he shushed him gently. “It wasn’t your fault. I’m alright. We’re alright.”

And it was amazing how the 0th were giving them privacy even being in the middle of a small sea of people.

They pulled back slowly, patting each other shoulders and letting out nervous, still-unbelievable laughs.

“Echo”, Anakin cleared his throat. It didn’t escape anyone that Ahsoka returned to his Master’s side with an excited smile, and that the 501st’s General was holding something behind his back.

“Sir”, he saluted with his good hand.

“Welcome back, trooper”, Skywalker said, and showed what he had been hiding.

A prosthetic hand shone under the hangar’s lights, clearly new. It was literally only a hand: it ended at the wrist, with a small extension that seemed made to... fit... onto a previous implant...

Echo rose the apparatus that was his left arm, and Anakin shifted his gift so he could see how it would click.

“I’ve been told that with your port you will have a great advantage when gathering intel, but that’s still not a good reason to not offer you an alternative. Shades sent me the schematics, and I have made it so you can put it on and off: no complications, just connect or disconnect.”

Slowly, very slowly, Echo eased his port into the metallic hand. With a bit of pressure, something clicked. Anakin took his hands away, but the prosthetic stayed in place.

The fingers twitched.

“It will take some therapy and adjustments, but I’m pretty proud of it.”

“It will come in HANDY”, somebody among the crowd bellowed.

All the 0thers turned to Bubble to playfully boo at him.

“You all love it and you know it!”, he defended himself, barely concealing his snickering under the helmet.

“Thank you”, Echo managed to say, swallowing down tears. “Thank you, sir. I don’t know—”

He interrupted himself, Anakin’s hand on his shoulder catching him off guard. “Hey. We’re just glad you’re back, Echo”, he said, all honesty.

And then Ahsoka was back around him, hovering around his new hand and explaining some details in the design.

Skywalker met Luna’s eyes. He gave a grateful nod, and even turned it into a small bow. She returned the gesture automatically, giving an amused smile.

“Sir, we should get going”, Kix piped up. “We still need to get Echo set up back at _The Resolute_.”

“Of course, Kix”, the General nodded. “Alright, men: wrap it up! We’re going home!”

Tup parted away from Bubble, Match and Raven. Fives was still near Echo, and made to follow him as Commander Tano pulled him towards the ship, but he stopped suddenly and turned around, eyes looking wildly for something. Or somebody.

He locked eyes with Dani, who blinked in surprise at the intensity of his stare. Before she could really react, he was on her and she was being pressed against him.

“Thank you”, Fives breathed out. “Thank you for bringing him home.”

Luna relaxed into his hold, gently rubbing his back.

“Take care of each other”, was all she requested.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys barely comment on my Fuck Canon Manifesto anymore :(
> 
> Fun fact: Echo, Fives and Dani went to ARC training at the same time, in the same group. They just never noticed each other because shenanigans


	41. Kamino VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Command Training. How Ian and Dani met. Enemies to well-I-guess-I'm-adopting-you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year everybody!!!!!!! Thank you every much to everybody for reading, leaving kudos, bookmarking, subscribing, commenting!!! I appreciate every one of you!! And I hope I can keep up with the qulity of my writing and not dissappoint. Cheers!!!!
> 
> WARNING: all kinds of angst ahead, this story is now tagged "Abandonment issues", and lots of biology/ecology nerdyness  
> EXTRA WARNING: brief mention of suicide ideation

“You called for me?”, Dani asked as she stepped into Shaak Ti’s office, half-holding a military posture, half-shifting the weight on her legs. The Jedi was her supervisor, and despite some tensions among them, their relationship was relaxed enough that she didn’t need to put up a show.

Her training armour had been recently washed, that was easy to notice, but it didn’t came as a surprise, since today was the first day of her last stage before graduating.

Phase IV: Command training.

Shaak Ti turned from where she had been watching through a wide window.

“I did”, she nodded, picking something up from a drawer under her desk and walking up to Ducky. “I need you to run an errand for me.”

“I, uh, have to be at class in 30 minutes, huh...”

“It won’t take long”, she reassured the younger.

“Okay... What is it, then?”

“I need you to go the South Wing HC-132. You’ll find a locked door with a rectangular slit through it. You must deliver this to Kaddak”, she explained, and handed her a tool.

Dani blinked at it. That. That was a high-tech lock-buster. A _professional_ lock-buster. Unruly had taught her to bust locks with everyday tools, but she had looked up easier ways to do it.

And that was it.

“Who... is Kaddak?”, she asked with wide eyes.

“Make sure nobody sees you”, she replied instead with a small smile. “Go, or you’ll be late to your class. Report back to me after dinner.”

“...Yes ma’am.”

 

She walked out of the office, walked into a camera blind spot and cloaked herself, heading for her destination, peeking at her timer every minute to check that she had time and wasn’t going to be late for her first Advanced Strategy class. Dani powerwalked through empty corridors and slithered her way through the crowded ones, barely raising any breeze. Eventually, presences thinned out, walls looking uncared for, but not enough to be considered abandoned. Ahead of her, she saw a red-clad clone with a tray in his hands, heading in the same direction as her. At the end of the hallway, she could make out a door, and yeah: it seemed to have the slit Shaak Ti had described.

The clone knelt down on the floor and slid the tray with food through a wider slit.

“Thank you, slave”, a voice said from the inside.

The other made to leave, but his gaze lingered for a moment on the door. He didn’t say anything, though. Just walked away.

Luna watched him go, feeling like she had witnessed an important interaction that she shouldn’t have; but there was nothing she could do about it now, so she turned to the door and tried to peek through the slit.

“Kaddak?”, she asked softly.

Brown eyes appeared suddenly and made her gasp and lean back, but they did not focus on her: instead darting around with a troubled frown.

“Are you Kaddak?”, she repeated, louder.

The eyes blinked in surprise at hearing a voice so close but no-one on sight.

“...Yes.”

“I have something for you. From Shaak Ti”, she offered, and made the lock-buster visible to him as she raised it up to the slit.

Kaddak backed away from the door, his eyes replaced by fingers as he took the tool from her to inspect it, Ducky professionally avoiding any direct contact.

“This—”

“You’ll be safer in Separatist space. I think”, she hoped so. “Good luck.”

“Wait!”, he called as she turned away. “Who are you? _Where_ are you?”

“Doesn’t matter”, she shrugged, even when he couldn’t see her. “Gotta go.”

And Kaddak was left there: hearing an invisible person run away. But come on: even rumours made it there, and he wasn’t stupid. That was none of his brothers, not a Kaminoan, and surely not a trainer or a scientist; and sent by General Shaak Ti?

He wished he had somebody to bet with, because he would have won.

 

Dani arrived two minutes early to class, and hurried to strike her military pose beside her new classmates. The man beside her spared her a glance, but his gaze didn’t linger as much as they used to when she got there. It had been almost two years since she arrived, after all: it was still a rarity to have her in one’s class, but everybody was quite accustomed to her at this point.

On her part, Ducky prodded at their signatures and most evident emotions: the majority was excited or astonishingly humbled of being there, of being considered good enough that they would hold the life of their troops in their hands. There was a bit of vanity among it, too, but it seemed that those persons were still trying to sort their feelings about their new positions, some struggling with _no, I’m here, so I’m gonna do my best for my brothers_ and others going _you know what? If I’m here, it means I’m hot shit, right? Right?_

But what really caught her attention was _dread_. Someone REALLY didn’t want to be there, mind racing to find ways out while keeping a composed exterior. Dani tried to lean back to peek at the source of the feeling, a clone standing three persons over to her right.

“Attention!”, the instructor called, and so she had to spring back into parade.

The alien gave her the stinky eye, but she met their gaze with a flat stare, being very close to the perfect definition of ‘no snapping back to your superiors under any circumstances’ but also giving an ‘I don’t give a fuck about you’ vibe.

A brief pep talk about the honour and responsibility of being a Commander, which increased the nervousness and urge to get out of there of the mysterious clone, and they were off to basically sit down and take notes of previous battle plans and analyse the possible outcomes before seeing the end.

“The tank left on the west flank could be devastating to the final push if nobody has the firepower to counter it, sir. It could cut off the first wave from their backup and men would be lost in vain”, someone commented.

“Good, 95. What should be done to fix this, since the plan is already in motion?”

“Air support would be ideal.”

“But there’s a blockade already in place, 90”, the instructor reminded him.

“And our own tanks are on the other side of rocky terrain, so there’s no way they can get there in time...”, 87 mused, narrowly avoiding chewing his nails.

“What about the scouts that got trapped behind enemy lines”, Dani piped up. “If the enemy is focused on the main force, then they could sneak out from behind and blow up the tank with well-placed thermal detonators, couldn’t they? No need for big guns.”

“That’s very guerrilla of you, Luna—”, the trainer hummed.

“That’s... why I’m here...”, she mused, going unheard.

“—but it’s an option. Somebody has other ideas?”

“Postpone the final push and redirect the initial forces to take care of the tank.”

“Also acceptable, yes. 89?”

The mysterious clone concealed his flinch.

“...Send the Jedi to deal with it?”, he said slowly.

Dani perked up with a frown.

“That’s very sloppy, 89. You know Jedis are not always available. You _can_ do better than that.”

A wave of judgement seemed to sweep the room and weigh down on 89, making Ducky shift in unease. The clone lowered his head, a silence stretching as all gazes lingered on him.

“He’s right, tho”, Dani piped up. “Shouldn’t we accounting for ALL possibilities?”

“As I said”, the instructor said slowly, giving her a meaningful look. “Jedis are not always available. And once you’re all out in the field, Jedi will always outrank you—“, he made a brief pause, giving her a _don’t say anything_ look, “—so don’t expect to just be able to send them around like ARCs.”

And he seemed pleased with his reasoning.

“Why?”, she blurted out, half to spite him, half because she _really_ had a problem with that. “For what I gather the Jedi have near to zero military training: the ones acting as Generals right now had to learn on the field. Why shouldn’t they listen to us when we will be GAR-approved command?”

The weight of the room shifted, now mostly crushing the instructor.

Half an hour in and she had already branded herself the class’ insurgent, huh.

After a pause of deafening silence, the man stood up from his seat at the head of the table they were gathered around and walked up to her.

“Stand, trooper”, he commanded, voice visibly controlled to stay even, though it was clear that was a shouted order anyways.

Ducky did so, holding his gaze.

“You may have wormed your way here, but know that I won’t hesitate to kick your ass off Kamino if you show insubordination again. Have I been clear?”, he snarled threateningly.

She gulped down as her heart clenched, because damn, that was a hazard to all her plans, and yes: she had managed to keep a level of rebellion without really causing the ire of her trainers, but it seemed like this guy wouldn’t be taking any of her shit.

A part of her screeched with rage at the restriction, another was smirking smugly because he hadn’t answered her question and was instead repressing her in front of the clones, which meant her question was inconvenient for him and the whole Kaminoan endeavour; and yet another part of herself was urging her to make herself smaller and shut her mouth before she ruined everything.

“Crystal, sir”, she replied, voice subdued but eyes hardened with repressed counterarguments.

The notebook she had started filling during her first day of training had been full for months now.

 

“So... We’re being deployed”, Cabur spoke slowly as they were having dinner together.

Dani dropped her fork, mashed tuber splashing around as she looked up at them with big, fearful eyes.

“...What?”

“Our training is complete. So we are being sent out”, Sal continued with the same cautiousness as her brother.

It would have infuriated her that they were talking to her as if she were a child had she not been busy with yet another breakdown over the idea that _my friends are leaving I’m going to be left alone again_ —

A hand rested on her shoulder, and she shuddered back into the present.

“Hey, you alright?”, Bee inquired, a sympathetic look on his face.

She was obviously NOT alright. It had not escaped them that she was still feeling down because of Unruly’s absence... It had been hard for all, but especially for Luna, and now they were ready for deployment but she still needed special training, and there was nothing they could do to stall their departure.

So Dani gripped Bee’s wrist and squeezed, looking down at her plate, getting overwhelmed by the dread of being left behind.

“Dani. Dani”, Zero called her, and after gulping down in an effort to get a hold of her emotions, she met his eyes. “It’s going to be okay. You got Shades, right? And Pedal and Metal, and the Tongue Batch is still around too, yeah? We have to leave, but you won’t be alone”, he tried to soothe her.

And yeah, he was right, but—

“But they won’t be you”, she whispered, voice breaking.

Bee pulled her into a hug, and she could feel Sal on her other side resting a hand on her back and Cabur’s and Zero’s sad eyes on her, casting glances around to make sure nobody was staring at Ducky’s vulnerable moment.

“When you are done with Bee, I would like a hug too...”, Sal tried to joke, and was ferociously embraced in a split second.

“You guys be careful out there”, Dani sniffed. “I wanna get to boss you around when I graduate.”

The group chuckled quietly at the idea, happy that her spirits were high enough to joke. They had been worried of leaving her on her own under the pressure of the post she was fighting for, but they had said it themselves: she did have other friends around, though they understood and were grateful that she had acknowledged openly that whoever might come would never replace them.

“Don’t worry about that, we’re being assigned a medic to our squad: so with whoever they are plus Cabur, we are totally covered!”, Bee patted her back.

“You haven’t met them yet?”, she sniffed, straightening in her seat.

“We’re supposed to meet them here. Now”, Zero commented, glancing around.

The clone jerked and raised an arm to call for somebody. Everybody tried to trace his gaze, but the sea of faces was... making it a bit hard. Dani made a sweep of the room and felt Shades walking towards them with another presence in tow, and soon enough the two medics were standing beside the group.

“Ah, here you are”, Shades greeted, and pulled his companion in front of him. “Guys, this is Tip. Tip, your squad”, he gestured to the table.

“Hi”, the new medic waved their hand.

“Hi!”, Cabur chirped back, sliding to make space for Tip to sit between him and Zero as everybody introduced themselves.

“Dani. But I won’t be part of the squad”, she said softly when it was her turn.

Shades walked over to her, Bee making room for him to sit beside her.

“Hey”, the medic nudged her gently.

“Hey”, she huffed, noticing with a raised eyebrow what seemed like a pretty good orchestration of events on her friends’ behalf but deciding not to comment on it because okay: it was kinda treacherous but also kinda sweet, and she really needed the company right now. “How are the surgeries going?”

“Bloody.”

“I would have never guessed.”

Shades slapped her arm playfully.

“Easy to say that, but when you have the guts in front of you—”

“I get it, I get it”, she cut him, really not in the mood to talk about organs. “It’s no joking matter when lives are at stake”, she acknowledged, her words weighing heavy.

She was expecting a retort or more banter on his behalf, but instead he rubbed her back softly. When she met his eyes, she found overwhelming sympathy and compassion.

“It’s gonna be alright”, he whispered under the on-going conversation among squadmates.

It was a lie. A blatant lie. Her friends were going to war without her. Unruly and Slick had ventured into Separatist space without her. Her father had travelled to another galaxy without her. She had travelled to said galaxy without her mother. It made her feel worthless. Unloved. Lonely. Even when they weren’t leaving her because they wanted to. She couldn’t help it. But she was so tired of being in constant breakdown...

Ducky sniffed quietly. She just wanted somebody to _stay_.

And she would have stood up and run, run to let the tears and sobs out, but that could be the last time she saw her friends.

So she stayed for a while: made a poor attempt at braiding Sal’s hair, cracked a joke to see Bee smile, encouraged Zero to ease his own worries, showed honesty and kindness to Tip and commented a few animals with Cabur. And she engraved every one of those moments in her memory and hugged her friends one last time before heading to Shaak Ti’s office.

 

“Ma’am”, she saluted blandly once she arrived, her mind suddenly swarmed with intrigue over the mysterious errand she had ran that morning.

“Luna”, Shaak Ti greeted, sitting on her chair. “Take a sit, please.”

Dani complied without a protest or comment. The Jedi arched an un-existing eyebrow at that.

“I hear your command instructor has managed to tame you.”

“Not ‘tame’”, the human growled. “Just subdued. For now.”

“I see”, Shaak Ti smiled briefly. Dani narrowed her eyes at that, failing at predicting where this was going. “I didn’t call you for that, though”, she made some sort of dramatic pause, just because. “Today, there’s been an escape.”

And Ducky was about to snort and go: _duh, of course, you made me give a lock-buster to a locked up guy..._ But then it felt like her blood turned to ice and her heart missed a beat, two, three; because that woman right in front of her had sent her to do something that was illegal on Kamino and she had rolled with it without thinking, without thinking that it might had been a trap, a plot to have evidence against her and kick her out of the GAR—

“Thank you.”

Dani chocked on the nothingness inside her trachea.

“You looked overwhelmed there for a second. Are you feeling alright?”, the Jedi asked as if nothing, but Luna _knew_ she was well aware of what had gone through her mind.

Instead of answering, she sighed and rested her head on her hands, taking a moment to close her eyes.

“What’s this about, then?”, she asked quietly.

Shaak Ti remained silent for a long moment.

“About doing what feels like the right thing to do.”

Dani looked up at her.

“I think we both agree: Kaddak didn’t deserve to be locked up”, she made a pause, but Ducky didn’t show any sign of being about to chime in. “I know about Slick. I know you are the only one that could have bailed him out, and I deduce that something happened and Unruly had to go with him.”

The younger’s fist curled in rage as she flinched at the bitterness of the memory.

“I covered that up for you”, the Jedi went on.

“...Thanks”, she muttered.

“With the favour you did for me today, we are even”, she nodded slowly. “I shall not demand more of you, but still I want to ask you: would you voluntarily offer your assistance for more tasks like these?”

“Why me?”, she asked with a raised eyebrow, distrustful. “You are one of the main bosses here. Figured you can do whatever you want and nobody has the right to ask.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not the case”, Shaak Ti slowly shook her head. “I am constantly watched. If I overstep, Lama Su could compromise my position. But you, Luna: who is already established as ‘the rebellious teenager’ and are acknowledged like that by most, if not all trainers; and who _I_ can cover for, are my best option at this. I have tried to take a page of your book and cloak myself, but it appears I am not... as proficient at it as you.”

Dani frowned, paranoia blanketing her to avoid missteps that could compromise _her_ position.

“Is this what you are doing here? Helping clones out?”

“In any way I can”, the Jedi said with her ever-calm tone, which was starting to drive Ducky nuts at her apparent lack of emotion about things. “And I am very aware that you could tell on me”, she added before Dani could snarl at her. “But you won’t. Because you did the same thing for Slick, unprompted.”

The human wanted to argue that, but found that she couldn’t.

“Why?”, Shaak Ti nudged her.

“...It wasn’t right”, she exhaled with a faint mixture of contained anger and helplessness.

“We share the same reason, then.”

“Does the Jedi Council know about this?”, Luna asked, body language slightly changing as she brushed off a bit of the tension she had accumulated over the conversation.

“No. No, they don’t. Just as they don’t know that you have been giving the Dark Side a try.”

“And that’s none of their damn business. I’m not a Jedi and not a Sith: they don’t have a right to tell me what I can do and what I can’t with my power”, she huffed, crossing her arms angrily.

“But they do have the Senate’s blessing to take care of problematic Force users. So your experimentation is better left unspoken.”

“Are you threatening me?”, Dani growled, raising her chin.

Shaak Ti released a long, tired sigh.

“We are in no position to be at each other’s throats. I know your ‘secret’, but you can trust me to keep it; because I trust you to keep mine.”

Ducky held her wary gaze for three seconds more before relaxing her posture, still studying the Jedi critically.

“Okay”, she finally said, arms crossed: “I’m in.”

 

The larty dropped them off in a clearing in the middle of the gigantic... forest? Jungle? She would have to pay attention to the vegetation to decide that. The point was: the command group was in the middle of nowhere, with only their backpacks, a couple tents and two weapons of choice each, because they needed to ‘work on their bonds and trust each other so the chain of command could remain solid’.

Dani watched the transport go as her teammates scouted the clearing.

“So. You wanna settle here, or look for a more defensible spot?”, she asked to no-one in particular.

“I say we go find water first”, Pebble answered.

“The regulations say we should do a thorough scouting to deem the zone safe enough to set up camp”, Ruler piped up.

“Alright, let’s consider this point our base and do some recon: if we don’t find a water supply we move on to another location”, Kov took over. “Someone has to stay here and set up the tents, and the others will scout for water or dangers.”

“I’ll build up the tents”, Dani offered herself, already turning to the equipment.

“Somebody stay with her and help her. 89?”, Kov nudged the quiet trooper.

“Sure”, he muttered in reply, adjusting his sniper rifle over his shoulder and slowly following Dani.

“Alright, the rest of us split in pairs and head for different directions: comms open, check-ins every ten minutes and we don’t go further than two clicks.”

“Copy”, the rest of the group nodded their acknowledgements and formed three pairs, scattering in different directions.

And just like that, Ducky and 89 were left alone in the clearing.

“Looks like Kov is the boss now, huh?”, she commented as they gathered the tents’ beams.

89 just grunted in response, disregarding her attempt at conversation. Dani scowled at him for a moment before retreating to herself. Fine: if he wanted professionalism over friendliness, she could roll with that. So they worked in silence, with the occasional ‘pass me that’ or ‘I hold this part, you hold there’. It took them some time, but by the end if it the tents were holding strong and everybody was doing their regular check-ins, so everything was going smoothly.

“We’re done with the tents”, 89 reported.

“Copy that. Pebble and Drop have found a stream—”

“We’re checking safety!”, Drop chimed in.

“—we are proceeding with recon. Nothing unusual so far around here”, Ruler informed.

“No dangers on our side either”, Pebble added.

“Nothing strange. We saw a couple critters running around, so we might be able to have some meat for dinner if we set traps”, 82 reported.

“Copy that”, 89 nodded to his wristcomm, and turned around to suggest to Dani to get on with the other chores they had to do to have their camp ready.

But she was nowhere in the clearing.

89 startled and spun over himself, trying to get a good look before peeking inside the tents, but she wasn’t there either.

“Luna?!”, he called out loud, anxiety arising because _DAMN,_ if he lost the reg-born this time he was going straight for reconditioning—

“Over here!”, a hand appeared from behind orange-coloured bushes and dived back into the vegetation. “Everything’s fine!”

89 stomped over to her, almost fuming.

“What do you think you are doing?! Vanishing like that...!”

“Sshh!!”, Dani hushed him harshly enough that he shut up, caught off guard by her tone.

He walked the last few steps carefully, leaning over the bush to see what was she doing.

She was holding a piece of ration bar over to at first glance appeared to be a pile of dirt, but watching closer 89 could see that there was a hole on it, and emerging from that opening there was a whiskery snout sniffing the offered food.

“...What’s that?”, the clone asked, voice hushed.

“I don’t know. Some kind of mice”, she replied in the same tone. “I saw it chewing at a leaf in the edge of the clearing. I wanted to get a better look.”

“So you’re going to waste one of your rations bar because you want to get a better look at a rat?”

“A rodent”, she refuted. “And yeah, I guess.”

“...Why?”

“Well, I’m trying to befriend it!”, _since you are not collaborating at all_ , was left unspoken. “I’ve had little to no interaction with alien wildlife! Since we have nothing to do here but survive, I’m gonna use my spare time to do some sampling by myself.”

“That’s nice and all, but we have, in fact, other things to do”, 89 straightened himself and crossed his arms.

“Alright, alright”, Dani huffed, and placed the food on the ground, where it was immediately snatched by what seemed to be the rodent’s long tongue. “Woah! Did you see that?!”

“I did”, the other sighed, turning around.

“Mice don’t do that on my planet!”, she went on, but 89 could hear she had stood up and was following him.

“Aha... Listen, we still have stuff to do, alright? Let’s get over with it and then you can go back to chasing critters around...”, he grumbled, passing her a foldable shovel.

“It’s not ‘chasing’, just observing!”, she snapped back, quickly getting tired of his attitude. She eyed the shovel for a moment, at a loss of what was she supposed to do with it, but then it clicked.

“Whatever. I’m going to search for wood: you start digging the latrine.”

And it was not that she didn’t want to do it, but—

“Why? We’re not even sure if we are staying here. I ain’t digging a hole just for us to pack up and leave.”

“Nobody has reported any hazards and we have already found water, chances are that we _are_ staying”, 89 retorted, and turned to disappear among the vegetation.

Dani huffed angrily and turned on her heels, going to find a spot in the opposite direction. At least she would get to choose.

 

They decided to stay there, at least for the first night. It was fine for Ducky: she had had fun digging the latrine, finding an assortment of bugs that made her go ‘woah’ and ‘ieugh’ in some cases. But fun, nonetheless!

Pebble and Drop returned with water from the stream and walked 89 and Luna there so they knew how to find it; while Kov and 82 set some traps to try and catch something for dinner. Ruler and Lace set the perimeter around the camp and did the first patrol as they all gathered for the night, turning on their helmet’s lamps as the sun set beyond the high trees. The fire was burning and meat from some kind of scaled small deer was slowly cooking as Dani gingerly dissected the remnants of the animal, much to the clones’ dismay.

“ _Must_ you do that?”, Drop finally asked, unable to stand it anymore.

“I know, I know, it’s disgusting, I’m not a fan of guts either”, she quickly said, turning her head and covering her mouth to stifle the nausea. “But I’m not doing this because I want to know how it looks inside, I just want to see the skull and the vertebrae, I swear!”

“But _why_?”, Ruler pointed out.

“To compare it to the closer being on my planet! There’s just so many possibilities in front of me at a biological and evolutionary level and I! Just! Want to know is evolutionary convergence is THAT common, or if it’s just some very specific characteristics; because _Homo sapiens_ has appeared in several solar systems all around this galaxy and probably mine too and I wanna know if it happens with animals and plants too, because that would mean that evolution is pointing _somewhere!_ Perhaps. It’s just an hypothesis right now”, she ranted, and finally managed to dislodge the head from the body, only to drop it and scramble for the bushes to puke.

“Oh, Force—”

“Shit, man!”

“That’s it: no more dissecting for you tonight!”, Kov had the nerve to scold her.

“Yeah, this would be way easier and not as messy if I had potassium hydroxide, not gonna lie...”, she conceded, plopping down on a trunk next to Pebble, who was looking a little green.

Sitting down was a mistake: just doing it she felt like dying from boredom.

“Okay, somebody wants to distract us so we can put the nightmare fuel that that experience was behind us?”, 82 sighed.

“Yes, please”, Ruler chimed in, rubbing his eyes.

“I can tell you about ecology and evolution if you want.”

“Let’s leave that as a last resort”, 89 snorted.

Luna snorted too at his tone with the rest of the group, but was not specially amused.

“Let’s play something, then”, she shrugged, sliding down the trunk to lay on the floor with her head and shoulders resting against the fallen tree as she gazed at the night sky.

“I didn’t bring sabacc cards.”

“Me neither.”

“Negative.”

“We could play Wrong Answers Only”, Dani suggested.

The presents turned their heads to look at her.

“How do you play that?”

“Let’s do a handshake”, she told Pebble, and he tilted his head in curiosity, but extended his arm nonetheless. “Wrong Answers Only”, Dani smirked, and instead of grasping his hand, she slipped hers inside his sleeve.

Pebble leaned back at the strange interaction, but seemed to catch on and huffed a giggle.

“Ah, I see how it goes”, he perked up. “Let’s do a handshake”, he said, and Ducky offered her hand, eager to see his action. He pressed the side of his hand into her palm. “Like that?”

“Yeah!”, she beamed.

Pebble beamed too, turning to Kov and performing a perfect military salute. “Kov, Wrong Answers Only!”

The other hesitated for a second, but then his flat hand flew under his chin.

“Very cute”, Dani giggled.

“Lace, Wrong Answers Only!”, Kov prompted, and raised his hand to wave at him.

Lace froze for a long moment, but finally extended her arm downwards and waved back.

“Luna, Wrong Answers Only!”, he called, and placed a finger over his lips.

Her two fingers flew to her face as she split them in a ‘V’ shape and stuck her tongue between them.

“What is that?”, Lace chuckled with honest curiosity.

Dani’s mind went _FUCK!_ as she let her hand fall and hid her tongue.

“Nothing”, she said too quickly. And because it was obvious they knew something was amiss, she added: “It was not an insult, I swear. Just a Wrong Answer.”

“You were quite quick about it”, Pebble pointed out.

“Yeah! Come on, what was it? Now that we finally have our share of time with the reg-born come from far, far away, at least teach us something the Kaminoans wouldn’t tell us!”, Lace pressed.

“It’s—“, Dani sighed. “It was sexual innuendo, okay? I meant nothing by it, it was an immature reaction on my part and I’m sorry”, she clarified.

The clones leant closer.

“We’re listening.”

“Oh, Force”, she grinned nervously, face-palming. “Listen, I’m not a sex education expert, I just know the basics: use protection and make sure that your partner is comfortable at all moments. That’s it.”

“Okay, but the gesture you just did—”

“It’s, huh, an oral sex thing.”

“Oral?!”, they perked up with surprise.

Dani took a deep breath.

“I’m gonna go full honest here”, she said, and there was something dangerous in her voice, like a hidden blade. “I do _not_ feel comfortable talking about sex while being alone in a jungle with seven men. If you are really interested in this and need help getting information I have no problem in helping doing so once we are back on Kamino, but right now I would like to change subject.”

It was a very polite way to issue an order.

“Yes ma’am”, answered a chorus of hushed voices.

“Thank you”, she said lowly, and picked up one of the sticks with a chunk of meat impaled in it, sniffing it a bit before biting.

“How is it?”, 82 asked

“Lacks salt”, she hummed before taking a bigger bite. “You’re not gonna like it. Don’t worry, I’ll take it so it doesn’t go to waste”, she smirked, playfully going to grab another stick.

Pebble smacked her hand away and grabbed his share.

“Nice try, but no.”

 

It rained in the morning.

Dani watched the rain pour until her hyperactive teammates decided they had stuff to do. So she joined the morning patrol with Ruler and they walked, sheltered by the dense foliage. She turned at every sound that came from the depths of the jungle, trying to get a glimpse of the animals making those. Ruler had to nudge her more than once because she tried to make a beeline for anything that caught her attention.

And being in the wild of an alien planet for the first time in her life, there was A LOT of things that caught her attention.

“Come on...!”, the clone huffed again, his patience quickly draining. “Once we get over with this you can go and keep dissecting your damn critter, but we have a schedule to maintain!”

“Yeah, I think I’m gonna drop the bones project”, she said, falling on her but as she managed to yank a small plant from the ground. She turned it around to look at the roots.

“You could have dropped that ‘project’ before you BEHEADED it”, he grumbled.

“My bad”, she shrugged apologetically.

“What are you doing now?”

“Trying to see if there’s mycorrhiza or nitrogen-fixing bacteria in symbiosis with the plants.”

“Why?”

“To check for the complexity of the ecosystem. Did you know that up to 90% of my planet’s plants have their roots in symbiosis with fungus? Scientists believe that they had the genes for this symbiosis way before they jumped from the ocean to the continent, and that was in grand part the reason why they managed to adapt to life on land. So maybe, if this plants aren’t in any kind of symbiosis, it could mean that these plants have in-land origins? Or maybe they have more than enough nutrients in the soil, and being in symbiosis wasn’t worth it because the plants were keeping the fungus alive while it provided nothing that the plants already had, so the relationship turned parasitic and the plants that were in symbiosis were purged against the ones that were not”, she ranted. “I think those are a cluster of nitrogen-fixing bacteria, though”, she added, pointing at what seemed to be small spheres attached to the roots. “Unless it’s a mechanism to add surface to the organism. Which I doubt, because it’s taking the surface-volume relation to the limit and it doesn’t look like a good plan to me if you ask me.”

“Fascinating”, Ruler spoke up when he had a chance. “I’m sure you are having a blast, and really: I can understand how exciting it is to rant about something you love, but if we could _please_ be done with our turn...”

“Yes. Sorry”, she perked up, replanting the vegetal and standing up. “Let’s head back.”

She kept scanning her surroundings, this time focusing more on possible threats that on... everything. Her mind still buzzed with information and hypothesis, but she _did_ have some semblance of self-control, so she didn’t stray away from her partner.

“Hey, Ruler.”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you think we are here?”

“To build up trust. That’s why they told us.”

“Yeah, but why drop us in the wild? We could have done that on Kamino.”

“It’s probably just a mashup of bonding and endurance. Plus, people don’t act the same way when in a safe location than out in the open. This is probably closer to how it will be once we are out in the field.”

“We’ll have people under our orders when we are out in the field.”

“Well, we have each other to order around”, he chuckled.

“Yeah”, she chuckled too, but then went quiet. “...Do you know why 89 hates me?”

Ruler turned his helmet to her.

“Oh, it’s not personal. He is always like that: doesn’t work anymore than he has to and has the minimal interaction possible.”

“Why?”

“Beats me. The guy barely has the minimum requisites to be in command training. If he doesn’t get a move on...”, he left in the air, looking away from her.

“What?”, she nudged, but the clone kept walking. “Ruler! ‘If he doesn’t get a move on’, what?!”

He stopped a few steps ahead of her, turning slowly.

“Do you know what happens to clones that don’t meet the standards, Luna? Or have you decided to be blind to it?”, he asked, a bitterness in his voice that seemed to have been pushed down for too long as he resumed his pace.

“I do know”, she called after him.

“Then you have your answer.”

Dani stood still for a moment, fighting to put her unease down before hurrying to catch up with her partner.

 

It stopped raining shortly after they returned to camp.

And all good biologist knows that’s the best time to go and study moss! (And microscopic water-life, but she didn’t have the tools for it, so...)

So there she was: carefully poking at the _red_ moss that grew up a trunk and popping open an sporophyte: brown spores sticking on the black of her gloves due to the humidity in the air. She would also need a microscope to study these well, but what had her fangirl-screeching was the colour of the photosynthetic parts of the organism: red, red, _red red red red RED!!!!!_ The photosynthetic pigments were _red_ , just like with the red algae of Earth, which allowed them to survive at greater depths than green algae! Since the tree cover was so dense, it made sense that smaller plants needed pigments that collected more energy when receiving very little light.

Very pleased by her deduction, Ducky straightened, looking up at the orange leafs above. But her eyes caught glimpse of something amiss, and her gaze jerked down.

There were marks. Deep scratches, well above her head, and a mental image of big claws digging them flashed in the depths of her mind, eyes widening in primal panic. She sprinted back to the camp, which was not too far away, to her dismay and frustration because _how the fuck did they not see that when scouting?!_ And burst into the clearing, skidding into a halt.

“We better pack up we better pack up we better pack up—“, she chanted in a frenzy as she gathered her very few scattered items into her backpack, attracting the attention of those who were doing chores around.

“Luna”, Lace called her, standing up from were he had been starting another fire with 82. “Luna, what are you doing?”

“I found some pretty worrying marks on a tree that I suspect are territorial markings from. A. Big. Animal”, she explained, already packed. “If it’s a carnivore and we are in its hunting grounds we better pack up.”

The clones exchanged glances, grips tightening around their blasters.

“Let’s call the others and show us”, 82 decided.

They reached the patrol and 89 and Pebble, who had been off to search for more food. Dani paced around, never staying still for more than two seconds as she swept her surroundings with the Force. It was confusing in that environment, with so many life that left her almost blind: the endless forest, the moss, the tiny animals running around, the hundreds upon thousands of microorganisms covering _everything_ —

When Kov and Pebble finally appeared Dani bolted for the markings, stepping harshly over the underbrush. It didn’t take her long to find the spot were she had been messing with the red moss and pointed up.

“There.”

There was a beat of silence.

“...Okay”, Pebble exhaled. “Okay, it looks bad, but let’s not panic. Thoughts? Observations?”

“It’s big”, Dani grumbled.

“Noted. What else?”

“It’s high”, she added, tone getting angrier.

“There are critters jumping from tree to tree, they have talons. Maybe one of them slipped and they scratched the bark—“, Lace offered.

“No, no, look at the depth: it doesn’t check out...”, Kov countered.

“Maybe _several_ critters slipped and—”

“It’s not the monkeys, Lace”, 89 grumbled.

“It could be a mutation of the tree. Hell, it could have been struck by a lighting!”, 82 argued.

“We would be in the middle of a wild fire if it had been lighting”, Ruler placated

“It may be a bird?”

“OR A FUCKING PLANE!”, Dani threw her hands into the air in desperation. “Why are we talking crazy!? The only thing we know for sure is that there’s an animal that can do _that_ to a tree, so it won’t have any problem doing it to us if it finds us! Just...! Let’s just _leave_ , please!”

She expected them to agree. She expected them to listen to her and consider _the fucking evidence that was right there_. She expected them to make their way back to camp and pack everything and head for an easily defendable position, like they had been taught to do when they found themselves in a sticky situation.

She didn’t expect them to exchange unsure glances. She didn’t expect the crushing feeling of being totally dismissed.

“We have an advantageous position, Luna”, Kov started slowly, as if talking to a child, which set Ducky’s eyes ablaze with anger, making the clone flinch. “I mean: we have everything we need at hand; we shouldn’t compromise this for what could be a defect on some bark. Unless absolutely necessary.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. She wanted to scream, to tell them that they were idiots, that better safe than sorry; but a childish part of her brain decided to took over.

“If someone gets eaten that will be on you”, she snarled, and turned on her heels: away from the group, away from the shame.

 

Dani performed her chores with cold professionalism: went to set traps or check them when it was her turn, tended to the fire and stood watch diligently during her night shift. But it didn’t escape the clones not only the cold shoulder she was blatantly giving them, but also the tension that enveloped her, as if she thought they were going to die at any moment.

“She’s taking it badly”, Ruler muttered, a streak of guilt in his voice.

“Well, she’s gonna have to deal with it”, 89 scoffed. “She’s not the boss of us and she was outvoted.”

“But she _is_ supposed to end up with a higher rank than us. What if we are supposed to follow her?”

“What do you mean?”, Lace asked, face scrunched up in confusion.

“I was talking to Luna the other day. She theorized that there was a hidden reason as to why the Kaminoans had sent us here. What if it’s that?”

“You’re getting as paranoid as her!”, 82 dismissed with a wave of his hand.

“Hush! She’ll hear you!”, Ruler hissed.

“She’s on her, what: thirteenth patrol in the last hour? Really though: maybe we should sit her down and have a talk with her before she does something reckless.”

“Well, she isn’t really doing something reckless, she’s just...”, Lace tried.

“Being poorly cooperative and paranoid”, 82 completed.

“Maybe we should just... be nice to her, show her that even if we disagree we are not antagonizing her...”

“Didn’t take you for a bootlicker, Drop.”

“Yeah, just because it’s her we have to make it nice and mellow?”, 89 grumbled. “I say we let her be. We have done nothing wrong.”

That, at the moment, seemed to be the end of the discussion.

Dani was too damn overwhelmed to care or hear them. They were right about something: she _was_ getting paranoid, but well, try not to be when you have an extra sense that goes off at increasing intervals because of your fear of a large predator prowling nearby. She was stressing herself out with her compulsive sweeps and she hated it. Shades could calm her down. Unruly could calm her down. Sal, Bee, Cabur, Zero could calm her down. Yaddle could calm her down. But the command clones didn’t have the level of trust she wanted before going: _hey I’m kinda panicking here, I need some comfort and/or validation_. Damn, she was pretty sure she was _forbidden_ to tell them that she was having Force-induced paranoia!

And so there she sat: alone, trying to take deep breaths and will the Force-sight down, along with the headache it brought. A small presence, but at least a vaguely familiar one, zigzagged towards her. Dani opened an eye, seeing a plated ball with a long snout and whiskers sniffing up to her.

“Oh. Hello there”, she croaked, a smile flashing on her face as she extended her a finger towards it. The rodent scooted closer, sniffing at her hand. “Sorry mate. No more ration bars.”

But the mice seemed interested still, and its long tongue lapped at her spore stained gloves.

“...Why are you doing that?”, she asked quietly. “Spores don’t have a consistent source of glucose or anything, it’s mostly just the moss embryo. Unless this spores do have glucose. Or is it your protein source?”

The rodent, of course, didn’t answer any of her questions; getting bold enough to climb on her hand to reach her fingertips better. Ducky’s eyes widened, taking in the hardened scales that had turned into protective plates. She wanted to pet it _so badly_ , but that would probably scare it away, so she just bit her lip to resist the urge.

“Not to be cliché, but I’m naming you Mickey”, she said to the stillness around her.

_Stillness?_

A compulsory sweep flashed in her mind, reassuring her that there weren’t any unknown presences around, and then she realized she had managed to not have any of those for a while.

 _Being a biology nerd is going to be my salvation, huh?_ , she smiled dryly to herself.

Mickey hoped off her hand and ran to some nearby moss, its tongue stretching out to warp around the sporophyte and pop it open.

“Wow.”

“Luna?”

She perked up, but didn’t startle. She had felt Drop approaching.

“Yeah?”, she asked, a bit more amicable now that she had dialled down her Force-sight.

“Are you mad at us?”

“...I’m upset”, she admitted, not looking at him. “I’m getting better. But it still upsets me that you dismissed my concerns so quickly.”

“...Sorry”, he said slowly, as if he wasn’t sure if it was the correct approach. “But we think it will be enough with our patrols and night shifts. I know our camp is not a fortress, but we do think we are covered.”

“I know”, Dani sighed tiredly. “I’m sorry I’ve been cold. I got nervous and I couldn’t shake the feeling off”, she apologized quietly, looking up to him.

“No harm done”, he shook his head with a relieved sigh. “I was going to fetch some more water to boil. You wanna come?”

“Sure.”

 

They went to collect the water and returned to camp. Dani repeated her apology: some of the clones admitted their blame and apologised too, some just thought it was natural that she apologized, not them. 89 among them.

Dani shrugged it off and went on with the chores of survival. She was still jumpy and hypervigilant, but at least it wasn’t reaching paranoia levels. She had started to latch onto Drop just as Drop was latching on her: he was the one that went with her and seemed more interested when she ranted about the wildlife (they thought it was very funny that she was so awestruck by the moss), and he had even get to meet Mickey. Every now and then she sneaked out to study the markings again, only to be dragged away by whoever’s turn it was. At least that was a routine she could live with.

But.

Constant vigilance wears you out.

Humans have to sleep.

Ducky melted on her corner of the tent, almost not noticing the hardness of the ground.

The feeling as if she had been vibe checked made her wake up with a strained gasp, heart drumming inside her ribcage and a clear _danger dot_ in her Force-sight.

“There’s something out there!!!”, she called, waking up the other six sleeping clones as she scrambled to get out of the tent.

89 looked up from where he was sitting on a rock, standing guard with his sniper rifle right beside him.

“What are you saying? There’s nothing there”, he grumbled. “Go back to sleep. You’re bothering everybody”, he added, gesturing to the men crawling out of the tent behind her.

“There’s SOMETHING there!”, she insisted with a snarl, pointing at the other side of the clearing.

All gazes followed her finger, hands going for their blasters, just in case. Something rustled among the bushes, tension arising.

Mickey hopped into the clearing, sniffing around.

“It’s just your mice!”, Ruler scowled.

“It’s not”, Dani muttered in utter horror. “Mick—!!”

Mickey Mouse got chomped the fuck out of it, its protective plates cracking uselessly under the force of the buckteeth clamping down on it and disappearing in the mouth of what appeared to be a big, scaled deer with terribly sharp antlers, the points of it aiming right for them. Its hooves were too sharp and claw-like for comfort.

No alien deer had the right to be so ripped.

There was a moment of horrified stillness, in which Luna’s eyes drifted to the remnants of the tiny deer that they had eaten their first day there. The high humidity and temperature had made haste in rotting the flesh away: and now the skull laid where the head had been kicked when it had started to smell bad. The big deer’s eyes drifted to the cranium too.

“I think we ate its kid”, she blurted out, and gulped down, looking back at the beast. “And it knows.”

Its eyes snapped back to the group, and all hell broke loose.

The beast that could have passed for a _Tikbalang_ charged at them, bellowing a bone-chilling sound.

The clones that were still half-inside the tent scrambled to get out.

89 reached for his sniper rifle.

Ducky shrieked in fear, also reaching for 89’s rifle, which was the closest weapon.

Somehow, she managed to snatch it before he did, his fingers scratching the hard metal as it was pulled away in Dani’s shaky grip.

“Wha—?! NO!!!”, he shouted, but she was already aiming, wide-eyed and shaking too much to do anything useful.

The shot missed by a mile, much to everyone’s horror.

“OUTTA THE WAY!”, was yelled from behind her, so with a sharp gasp, she rolled to a side, and blaster fire rained on the _Tikbalang_.

89 also rolled away in the opposite direction, scowling as he saw that his main weapon was now abandoned on the ground.

The fire had to cease, since the animal wasn’t deterred by the energy bolts, and the group scattered. The alien deer teared right through one of the tents, the fabric now shredded and tangled around its antlers. They shot at it from behind, but that only made it twist around and strike at them blindly.

Dani was struggling to regain her footing and fumbling for the vibroblade in her belt, since she had forgotten her own blaster inside the now stomped tent, eyes fixed on the creature in fear. 89 glared at her for a moment, meaning to yell at her to kick his rifle at him, but he decided it was too close to use a sniper rifle, so instead he dashed for his own blaster.

“Split in two, split in two!!!”, Kov tried to organize them.

It was what they needed to do to survive, they all knew it: their strength resided in planning and coordination, and if they kept panicking they were going to end up isolated and hunted. So they scrambled to do as he said.

The _Tikbalang_ ripped the fabric away from its antlers and made a noise between a moo and a shriek, swinging its head between the two groups before deciding for the one formed by 89, Kov and Ruler. It charged for them, so the other group opened fire as they escaped, drawing its attention.

Dani felt utterly useless with just the vibroblade in her hands. Was she even allowed to us the Force in front of them? Nobody had told her anything. Should she instead reach for her blaster?

“Scatter!!!”, Ruler yelled from beside her, and Dani rolled away, towards the bushes, and cloaked herself. Ruled by her wildly beating heart, she parted from her group.

The beast barely seemed hurt by the blaster bolts. Everybody was busy thinking of a strategy to get them out of the situation. Ducky dashed for the remnants of the tent and patted the ground, searching for a weapon. But it was dark, too dark, the light of the fire wasn’t enough for her to see clearly.

Her actions were pointless, and she had turned her back to the threat. Now she saw that.

Behind her, the _Tikbalang_ had grown tired of the game, and it charged for the bigger group, ignoring the trio’s shots. The others hadn’t scattered fast enough, thinking it would turn around when they attacked it from the rear. Dani turned around just in time to see it swing its antlers, catching Drop and 82.

“NO!!!”, several voices echoed. Maybe Dani’s was among them, she wasn’t even sure.

The blaster bolts were suddenly angry, more focused as it swung down again against Drop, who had fallen closer to the animal. He screamed, again, a sound more horrifying than the creature’s bellowing.

The beast fell dead on its side, a vibroblade embedded in the underside of its neck.

“KRIFF!!!”, Pebble shouted, and dashed for Drop. In a similar way, but a little more calmed, Lace went to kneel by 82. “SOMEBODY PASS ME THE MED KIT!!!”

Dani gasped, breaking free from the throwing pose she had seemed to be frozen in, and went back to scrambling in the darkness. She stumbled first with her helmet and hastily put it on, turning on the light. It was way easier to find the bulky medpack than a discarded blaster. She made a Force-step to get where the others were crowding around their wounded. Kov stood near them, staring at her.

Ducky felt his judgment without need for words and almost flinched, but then the medkit was snatched from her hands and she was slapped by 82’s and Drop’s pain. She stepped back, in part to give Pebble, Lace and Ruler space to tend to them, in part because she hadn’t steeled herself for it and couldn’t stand it.

She began to work on it, taking a couple deep breaths, when she was shoved to a side and she stumbled to maintain her balance and turn to the unseen threat, only to discover it had been 89 who had pushed her away.

“What are you—?!”, she started to protest.

“You broke formation!”, he roared, pushing her again. “You abandoned your group! You deprived me of my main weapon!”

“ _Vod, vod_ ”, Kov intervened, holding him back. “Now it’s not the moment.”

“ _Nobody_ has any business with MY rifle”, he snarled, shaking himself free from his brother’s grip and turning away, collecting said weapon and going to stand guard.

Kov watched him go and sighed before turning to her. “We will talk about this. Later”, he punctuated, and Dani looked down, ashamed and feeling like a scolded child. “See if you can help 82 and Drop, if not work on rebuilding the ten—”

Another bellow echoed from the depths of the jungle. They slowly locked gazes from where their eyes had snapped at the sound.

“...Scratch that, we’re moving as soon as we can”, he said, and went to pack things.

Ducky’s body jerked into action. She strode towards the downed men and took in the general situation: 82 was already sitting up, but clutching at his arm. Lace was trying to get him to let go so he could bandage the deep cut in his biceps. His arm was also broken, she noted. So first thing she did was kneel beside him and rest a hand on his shoulder to warn him of her presence. He looked at her through eyes narrowed in pain.

“It’s okay”, she shushed him. “You’re okay, let Lace fix you up”, she nudged him, with and without the Force.

“I gave him an hypo, it should kick in soon, but—“, Lace started, when 82’s resistance slipped away. “Oh. Alright, good.”

Dani helped ease the sedated clone on his back.

“Do you need me to—?"

“LUNA! Bring your first-aid-graduated ass here!”, Ruler called from barely four steps away from them.

“Go, I got this”, Lace reassured her with a nod.

She shot to her feet and dropped beside the bloody mess that was Drop.

“Oh, fuck”, she whined in distress.

“We need pressure, put pressure—!”, Ruler rambled, and before he could even end the sentence Dani was already pressing her hands down on the long gash that ran through his clavicle. Ruler was the one pressing down on his chest, while Pebble was putting all his weight on Drop’s stomach.

Under their unforgiving hands, he tried to squirm as he gasped for air. His breaths were deep but too short, and the blood loss was slowly making it shallower.

“You gave him an hypo?”

“Of course we gave him a _karking_ hypo!!! He would be screaming if we didn’t!”, Ruler snapped.

Dani scowled, but decided against replying. He was nervous and that was his way of coping and they had higher priorities at the moment.

He was probably managing himself better than she had when the _Tikbalang_ had appeared.

So she did a quick estimation and leaned her whole arm on the wound as she dug inside the medpack for bandages, and she pulled and pulled, passing them to Pebble before helping him hastily bandaging the deeper cuts over Drop’s guts. The blood stopped pouring from the clavicle wound when she was almost done helping Pebble, and she did a frantic check on the unconscious clone: scarily pale and his breath was now a squeaky whisper, but still holding. Luna hurried to help Ruler: maybe he would be able to calm down a bit when he could lean back from his brother’s mangled body.

Dani was also not handling very well seeing her uncle like that. There was a little voice at the back of her mind, whispering: _that could be dad, dad could be dying right now or he could be already dead, months, years ago, and here you are: chasing ghosts—_ But training had been very clear at the steps to do, and so she did as she had been taught, with the only solace that she was doing the best she could.

Eventually, they were done. The bandaging was messy and already stained in several spots, but it would hold until sunrise. Ducky checked Drop’s pulse to find it weak with a faint irregularity.

That was not a good sign.

She leaned back, her mind strangely blank as she stood up and looked around. It seemed like Kov had already managed to pack away the other tent and had gathered the other’s belongings in their respective backpacks, and now was rummaging around the remnants of the ruined tent with 89, who still kept an eye out for threats. Dani strode straight to them. Kov actually flinched when he turned to gaze at her. Whatever he saw in her expression, she didn’t care.

“Status?”, the clone asked.

“82 is fine. Drop isn’t”, was that she talking? It felt like she had two different trains of thought, and she was in none of them. “But if we have to move we have to arrange a stretcher or something.”

“You can use the tent’s fabric”, he nodded, pulling at a corner of the material.

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“Okay, okay, no need to rip my head off...”, Kov deflected her, tensing up.

Ducky tilted her head. Why that answer? Was she being... aggressive? She had only meant to make an statement. But there were other things to worry about, like GETTING THE FUCK AWAY FROM THERE, so she took the fabric from him and gathered a few thin beams and brought it all beside the wounded to take better measurements and build a stretcher. She hoped 82 would be well enough to walk when she was done, because by the looks of it they only had enough material for one stretcher. Pebble shuffled closer to help her, and she let him. Ruler was sitting by Drop, gaze distant as Lace gripped his shoulder and murmured to him.

There was a strange, tense silence surrounding them. Guess it was normal when they had just been attacked and now had to move as soon as there was enough light to see. Pebble and Dani constructed the stretcher and tested it, because nothing would be more devastating than having it give under Drop’s weight, and moved to place the badly injured trooper on it.

“We should try to give him water”, she murmured, and nobody refuted her, so she moved to his head to shake his shoulder a bit, calling his name softly. He barely stirred. “Drop. Hey, Drop. Can you drink? We need you to drink. You’ll feel a bit better if you do, I promise.”

He blinked at her, making an effort to understand her words, and his chin jerked in something resembling a nod before his head fell back against the fabric.

“Lace, can you help me sit him up?”, she asked, harsher than she had been talking to Drop: not a request, but a polite order.

Lace moved immediately, crouching behind Drop and holding him as upright as they could manage without making him cry out in pain. Luna waited for him to regain some semblance of a normal breathing before bringing the water pack to his lips.

“We’re gonna go slow, okay? But try to drink as much as you can”, she gently reminded him, and cautiously tilted water into his mouth.

He coughed a bit of it at first, but they managed to find something like a rhythm. Regardless, he turned his head away way too early for Dani’s taste. She released a tired sigh, deciding not to press him.

There was still this numbness drowning her brain, preventing her from acknowledging the most probable outcome. She placed two fingers on Drop’s neck, and spaced out.

A hand gripped her shoulder from behind and she jerked violently before she remembered that she had no reason to fear.

“Sorry”, Lace apologised quickly.

“It’s fine”, she rasped.

“Here”, he continued, and handed her her now clean vibroblade. “Nice throw.”

“...Thanks”, she replied hollowly, slowly picking it up.

“We’re moving out in five”, he added, and then Luna noticed that yeah, the sky was a bit more clear now.

“Alright”, she sighed, and stood up to gather her things.

In less than five minutes there were all gathered around Drop, that strange tension still holding fast among them. 82 was able to stand on his own, but Ruler had insisted on carrying his backpack so he didn’t put pressure on his injured arm.

“Okay, we’ll take turns to carry the stretcher—“, Kov started.

“I’ll be scouting ahead for a good spot to camp”, Dani interrupted him. “We will NOT be carrying Drop around blindly”, she huffed.

“I agree”, Pebble nodded diplomatically. “I’ll go with you.”

“No”, she said brusquely. “With two carrying the stretcher we will have four defenceless people out of eight. Whoever is not doing heavy lifting as to keep an eye out for the others.”

“So what? You’ll just scout alone? You could get eaten and we would never know!”, 89 grumbled.

“Then it would only be ME who dies”, she snarled back and turned around to take a couple steps before turning to them again. “Just choose a direction and let’s go.”

“Upstream?”, Ruler suggested.

Nods and shrugs were the main reply. So Dani nodded her agreement and powerwalked out of sight.

 

She spotted the wall of a cliff and zigzagged among the bushed to inspect it. There were some holes in the stone, maybe she could find one big enough to be considered a cave, and if not and least they would know they could have their back guarded against the rocks—

“Luna!!!!”, a voice called loudly, and her head snapped in its direction, Force-sight expanding even more because she had already been keeping an eye at her surroundings and her teammates and nothing big had gotten close to them, so why were they calling her...?

And she noticed the flicker of Drop’s presence, so she ran. She sprinted faster than a human is supposed to and got to them in less than two minutes of jumping over vegetation and dodging trees, skidding to a halt next to were 89 and Lace had lowered the stretcher.

“What is it?”, she asked, dropping to her knees.

“His breathing is getting weirder”, Ruler informed her anxiously.

Yeah, Drop’s exhales were wheezes and his inhales were gasps now.

But what was there to be done? He had been impaled with antlers. She only knew that his lungs were damaged thanks to the Force. There was liquid in his lungs and she couldn’t do anything about that because even if she had the tools, she hadn’t been trained in surgery.

 _He is going to die_ , she wanted to shout, to cry and let the frustration and fury that was eating her out. But she couldn’t. Not when Drop was still breathing, not when he could hear her. He didn’t deserve to pass away in fear. So she did her best: placed her palms over his chest and patched what she could a bit until the gasps softened.

Nobody commented at that as she roused him a bit to give him more water. Lace even turned around and whistled a melody until Kov elbowed him. Dani didn’t paid them any mind, too distracted by the frustration and anger that still clung at her.

“I’ve found a cliff wall”, she reported as she stood up with a sigh. “I was checking for caves when you called, but for now it’s an assurance that we will have a flank covered.”

“Copy. Lead the way”, Ruler nodded with a resemblance of self-trust, despite still hovering nervously around Drop.

82 seemed a bit out of breath, but otherwise he seemed to be holding up fine.

“It’s quite close. You can take a brake while I check for better spots again”, she suggested.

“Take someone with you this time”, Kov chimed in, and Dani couldn’t hide her grimace at that, so she turned with a huff and walked away.

“Is there a problem, Luna?”, 89 called accusingly from behind her, and she actually turned to glare at him: doing nothing to de-escalate the building tension. “If you got a problem, speak up!”

She almost did. Almost. But she glanced at Drop and she deflated; and they followed her eyes and shrunk a bit on themselves too.

“Not now”, she grumbled, and stomped away.

 

They reached the rocky wall, but they found nothing big enough to be considered a cave to squish in, so they set up the remaining tent against the cliff and settled Drop inside. 82 stepped out of the tent to see Dani staring up as the sun set.

“Everything alright?”

“Just checking that no boulders will fall on us”, she replied dully.

“Again?”, he punctuated, because he knew she had done that four times already.

Ducky just nodded, not meeting his eyes.

82 sighed. He was tired. Physically tired, and now mentally exhausted at the hostile atmosphere that had settled among the group.

“Let’s get this over with”, he groaned, which succeeded in getting Dani’s attention before he turned and called: “Command meeting!”

Before Luna could figure out a way of slipping away, she was surrounded by her peers, minus Drop. Ruler poked his head out of the tent, but stayed half in half out to keep an eye on the injured trooper.

82 turned to Dani and made an attempt at crossing his arms, which didn’t go very well because his wounded arm was in a sling and he couldn’t touch it without flinching; but the reduced effect of his gesture wasn’t that much of an issue because she was openly pouting.

“Come on, say it”, he nudged her, a bit angrily.

“Say what?”, she grumbled.

“You know it. We know it. So just say it so we can move on!”, Pebble spat.

Dani scowled, showing her teeth and hooking her fists under her armpits to keep them from shaking.

“SAY WHAT?! THAT I TOLD YOU?! THAT I FUCKING TOLD YOU THAT THERE WAS SOMETHING DANGEROUS IN THE FOREST AND YOU ALL DISMISSED ME ON THE SPOT?!”, she shouted, and damn: it was such a relief to finally be able to let it out. “And it attacked us and look now!”

“’Look now’ what?!”, 89 snarled back.

“We have two wounded!”, she gestured to the tent, leaning forwards towards him.

“That’s not our fault!”, he countered, leaning towards her too. “If you hadn’t snatched my rifle I could have killed the beast before it got to us! Nobody would have gotten hurt!”

The reproach shut her up with a sharp gasp and made her flinch, taking a step back at the implication that it was _her_ fault.

“89”, 82 warned.

“You broke formation! You left your squadmates!”, he kept pressing.

“I only had a vibroblade!”

“Not _our_ fault that your weapon choice was shit!”

“Says the guy that brought a sniper rifle to a _jungle_!”, she countered, now personally offended.

“You two knock it off!!!”, Kov scolded them, fearing that they were going to get physical at any moment and standing between them to keep some semblance of control. “We’re all worked up, but we can’t blame everything that has happened on one person! Is that clear?!”

It was, but that didn’t make it alright. Ducky’s fists still trembled with rage and her teeth clenched almost painfully. She was at the verge of crying out of frustration and the feeling of loneliness, and her rational mind said _fuck it_ and shut down, her mouth opening to let out things that she would regret having said later—

“Dani!”, Ruler’s voice cut through the air before anything could get past her vocal chords, and she chocked on air for a moment. “Something’s wrong with Drop!”

The aggressive tension that had accumulated in her body turned into anxiousness, and her body seemed to liquefy for a moment as she broke free of the stance she had been locked on, slithering her way past 89 and Kov to duck into the tent and crawl to where Drop was having trouble breathing again.

Her frustration melted away at the miserable sight.

Her hand hovered over his chest and she grimaced at the amount of liquid in his lungs. Making him cough it with the Force would only damage his lungs further.

“I need things to prop him up”, she called over her shoulder, and heard Ruler pass the message to the others as she slipped behind him to sit him up herself.

Drop let out a strangled sound, his breath hitching.

“It’s okay, Drop”, she mused into his ear, planting a soft kiss on his bald head. “We’re here. You are not alone.”

She kept whispering to him as his chest spasmed. Her fingers glided carefully under the blanket and over his bandages, finding some wet spots. They should... maybe change those.

Maybe.

Ruler passed her an emptied backpack –- _was it hers...? Motherfuckers—_ and three rolled-up blankets. He helped her pad the backpack and place the blankets so Drop could lean on it comfortably. Or as comfortable as it could get.

“We have to talk”, she breathed out, and turning to leave without looking at him in the eyes. “We have to talk”, she repeated louder to the now a bit scattered clones.

They made to join her at the entrance of the tent, but she walked a good handful of steps away and turned around on her heels, arms crossed and gaze low, waiting for them. The others exchanged gazes, already fearing what she was going to say, and slowly walked up to her. Ruler was the last to approach, his eyes imploring for reassurance.

Dani could barely hold his gaze.

“He’s not going to make it”, she said quietly but clearly enough. “unless we get picked up soon.”

What followed wasn’t quite a silence. Not with the shaky sighs and the rustle of boots against the ground as some turned away to try and catch their breath or blink away the tears. Ruler’s breath was picking too much speed: probably on its way to hyperventilation. Kov rubbed furiously at his eyes and stepped forward to slung an arm across his brother’s shoulders to guide him to a side and help him cope.

Dani watched them go with hollow eyes, but a sudden hardness to them gave away a spark of stubbornness.

“Do we have a way to contact Kamino?”, she asked to the ones remaining around.

“No”, Pebble rasped. “No, they didn’t give us long range comms. We just got our close range and the locators for them to find us.”

“You’ve done exercises like this before? How long are they supposed to last?”, she tried, because that was her first survival trip and she had been thrown into it clueless.

“They didn’t tell us anything: it could be two weeks, or two months!”, Lace growled to the sky, exasperated.

“So this is not standard training? Maybe there’s a goal to achieve?”, Dani kept pressing despite the building tension.

“We don’t know, Luna! We don’t _know_!”, he snapped, and stormed off.

She scowled, fists clenched tight.

“I’m just trying to find a solution here!!!”, she called after him, and let out a harsh huff at the lack of cooperation.

Nobody seemed ready to try and tackle the problem at hand. It was a bit infuriating, but she couldn’t blame them. She had had some time to process Drop’s state, but the other’s hadn’t. She could only hope that they would compose themselves soon.

With her feelings more or less sorted, she turned to 82, who’s eyes were lost in the middle distance.

“Hey”, she called softly, touching his good arm to get his attention. He jerked back to the present, owlishly blinking at her. “How’s your arm?”

“...Itches a bit”, he mused in reply.

“We should change your bandages. Do you want to do it now or do you rather later?”

“Doesn’t...? Doesn’t Drop need them more...?”, he asked, worry and what was perhaps shame or guilt in his voice.

 _Bandages aren’t going to save him_ , was the first answer she came across with. But with the feeling in 82’s voice, she couldn’t say that out loud.

“You need them too”, she shrugged weakly, just as she had given a weak reply.

He didn’t seem convinced.

“Come on”, she nudged him, gently pulling his good arm. “This won’t take a minute.”

 

Her paranoia was back. But at least now nobody could call her out on it, because it was justified.

She spent their first night against the cliff outside the tent and next to the fire, sweeping their surroundings over and over and over. They could hear the bellowing of the _Tikbalangs_ , but none of them walked into her Force-sight range.

That didn’t mean they wouldn’t do so the next night, though.

Her performance decreased exponentially during the day, so her partners ganged up on her to convince her that yeah: they were totally capable of standing guard and she had just tried to cook their meal’s bones and throw away the meat, and that meant it was sleepy time. So when the sun set down, she was slowly but surely pushed into the tent.

And she lied. An listened to Drop’s laboured breathing. And made Force-sweeps.

And she must have blacked out at some point, because she awoke when a dreadful presence appeared in a subconscious sweep. Dani bolted upright and took in her immediate surroundings: there were others sleeping inside the tent, but last time she had awaken them in a panic it hadn’t ended well, and the presence was nearing but still far enough that they would be able to prepare if it kept coming. So she crawled out of the tent, already taking in air to warn whoever was on guard duty—

It was 89.

89 was on guard duty.

_Ugh_

“Why are you awake?”, he asked as if her mere presence annoyed him.

Her eyes glanced at the rifle in his hands. He saw where she was looking and clutched it tighter.

“There’s— I think there’s another one of those things close”, she explained shakily, turning her head towards where she _knew_ was the _Tikbalang_ coming from.

89 tensed immediately, dropping to a knee from where he had been sitting on a half-rotten log and taking position to shoot.

“Where?”, he asked, already looking through his scope.

“Shouldn’t we wake up the others...?”, she tried, because last thing she wanted was to have more wounded or dead because... Because they thought they could pull it off just the two of them.

Just like she had thought she could pull it off by herself the first time.

“If _you_ let me do _my_ job, this beauty will take care of everything”, 89 answered, lightly patting his weapon. “Not get here and tell me where is it.”

With a bit of doubt, Ducky crawled closer to him, still crouching out of his personal space.

“There”, she pointed a bit to their left. “You see where the bush that has a bit of an “S” form and the one that looks like a pine cone touch?”

“The lateral branches or the top?”, he asked, already adjusting.

“Doesn’t matter. It will come from there: I think the head would be... about forty centimetres above the top of the highest bush.”

“Only forty? I would make that double.”

“Not if it comes already barrelling at us.”

“Touché. Do you see it?”

“It’s getting closer”, she fidgeted, because she really didn’t see it, it was too dark: she was sensing it.

“Keep your eyes on it”, 89 instructed, and she nodded despite the fact that he didn’t take his eyes off the scope.

The seconds crawled by. The _Tikbalang_ was moving erratically towards them, but its path was becoming more and more focused, and hostility began to irradiate from it.

“It’s getting closer”, she reported nervously.

“Is it still where you pointed me?”

“Yeah.”

“I need you to tell me when it’s about to come out of the bushes.”

“Isn’t that cutting it a bit too close?”, she stressed, because they didn’t have as much space between them and the vegetation as they had had in the clearing.

“Can’t shoot before I see it: I could miss and even if we roll away, it will tear down the tent”, he explained, voice tight as he aborted a jerk of his head for the sake of taking aim.

“Okay”, Dani exhaled. “Okay”, and turned her whole focus on the incoming beast. “Getting closer. Picking up speed—”

“I hear it!”

“Closer, closer, five, four three two one NOW!”

Just as it started to bellow in rage 89 took the shot, blowing a smoking hole through right between the base of its antlers.

The body dropped heavily to the ground. Dani suddenly felt dizzy and fell on her ass, realising that she hadn’t take a breath in a while.  89 lowered his rifle and also took a steadying gulp of air.

“Wha’ ‘pned?”, Kov slurred, stumbling out of the tent as he blinked furiously, trying to clear his vision as his hands tried to get a good hold of his weapon.

“We got it under control, _vod_ ”, 89 soothed him, gesturing to the dead animal.

“Oh”, the other mouthed when he saw the corpse. “So, uh—”

“We keep an eye out. In case there are more”, he nodded. “Go back to sleep.”

“Alright... You wake us up if things get dire, yeah?”

“Yeah”, Dani and 89 nodded.

“Alright”, Kov nodded back, and awkwardly crept back into the tent.

The other two watched him go and then looked at each other, releasing a nervous giggle.

“You... are a good spotter”, 89 seemed to concede with some sort of hesitation.

“You are a _great_ shooter”, she huffed in reply, because damn it if she wasn’t good at winning people over with compliments.

He fidgeted for a moment before his hands suddenly tightened again around his rifle.

“Uh, any more close by?”

Dani jerked to attention, doing another sweep.

“...Not at the moment.”

“Alright”, he exhaled, and his grip relaxed again.

They stayed in a somewhat uncomfortable silence for a while, just listening to the fire crackle

“...Shouldn’t you go back to sleep?”, he asked eventually, and it sounded too much like an _I don’t want you here, so leave_ that could have totally made her shrink back on herself and disappear from his sight forever.

But she was so tired of not being wanted, and despite the hurt she couldn’t bring herself to hurt others. To have a violent reaction. To make people suffer like she suffered. So she did the only thing that was left: being open and kind.

“I’m sorry I took your rifle”, she blurted out, not looking at him. “I don’t know why I did it. I panicked. I shouldn’t have done it. And I’m sorry.”

89 didn’t say anything for a long time. Luna was really considering to just slip inside the tent again and hide when he finally spoke.

“I’m sorry I... took my frustrations out on you. You did make mistakes, but I... wasn’t fair to you, even before that. I apologize.”

Dani blinked at him, equal parts surprised and pleased by his words.

“I forgive you”, she smiled briefly, before she seemed to realize something. “What, uh, are you frustrated about? If you don’t mind me asking?”

He seemed to tense up a bit at that.

“It’s just... the whole situation.”

“The being in the wild for who knows how long?”

He shook his head, realising a tired sigh.

“The everything. You said it: I’m good snipping. That’s all I rather do, not command training...”

“Oh. Can’t you ask to be reassigned?”

“I tried”, he made a pause, as if considering if he should go on with an explanation or not, “but they said that it would be a waste of resources to demote a CC to sniper.”

Dani grimaced at the crudeness of that.

“I’ve been trying to find ways of getting me demoted, but it’s not going great so far.”

“That’s a dangerous thing to do”, she commented quietly.

“I know”, he replied plainly. “But don’t you dare chew me out on it, I’m not the one questioning the whole chain of command in front of our main instructor”, he refuted, pointing at her with an accusatory finger.

“Why are you booing me? I’m right!”, she laughed to herself.

“On Kamino it doesn’t matter if you are right or not”, he replied darkly, the meme totally passing over his head.

He glanced at Dani, who’s smile was vanishing at his words.

 _It’s not fair_ , she wanted to say. But she was sure he already knew that, and by the way he was steering the conversation away from him, she took that he didn’t want pity, either.

“The Kaminoans are violating so many sentient rights, to be honest. The Republic is, too, by letting them get away with it for the sake of war”, she said instead.

89 regarded her for a long, long moment.

“You have some seriously treacherous thoughts to be aiming to become a General.”

“What can I say? Change the system from the inside and all that”, she shrugged.

A barely-there tilt of his head, packing a surprising amount of captured attention that he hurried to conceal.

“Oh yeah? Why would you want to change things? It’s not like they wrong _you_ ”, he side-eyed her, as if his whole focus wasn’t on their conversation.

“They wrong _you_ ”, Dani countered. “Therefore they wrong hundreds of thousands of people while the war profiteers get richer and richer, and the poor are left to starve and die. And you said it yourself: it doesn’t matter that you are right when you speak out your thoughts, the Kaminoans would make you disappear without a second thought the moment any of you became an inconvenience.”

“And?”, he pressed after a moment of silence, while Ducky was trying to calm herself down a bit.

“And they are fancy slavers and I should kill them where they stand”, she snarled, staring at the fire.

“But you won’t”, he continued, voice strangely hollow. Regardless, she felt ashamed by his words.

“Not yet.”

 

Drop was dead by sunrise.

Ruler cried out when he noticed the void his strained breathing had left. Dani bolted awake from where she had eventually fallen asleep on the ground, and noticed the void in her chest, in the Force. Seeing the corpse felt like a slap to her very soul, but there was... a faint trace of relief left behind. Like Drop had been suffering too much in the end, and when the moment came he was glad to let go.

She didn’t tell that to the others, of course. She cried quietly and stood to a side as his brothers grieved him together. Grieved him right.

She did help dig the grave. Ruler wasn’t doing well, and they still needed to keep up patrols in case more _Tikbalangs_ came. So the others steeled themselves, redistributed chores and let the afflicted clone rest. They buried the body and planted his blaster and helmet on top. Dani just watched, not wanting to intrude but feeling like she already was: after all, she was seeing first hand how her uncles treated their dead when there was no one else around. She listened to them list names, and she was curious, but she didn’t dare ask. It wasn’t the right moment.

Drop’s absence was a painful constant through their routine. They couldn’t pair up anymore. Now there was always a trio. They hunted, they scouted, they cooked and they patrolled. Days became as long as nights, which were already unending for Dani. She had been sporting dark bags under her eyes for days, but no amount of sleeping seemed to be able to make up for the constant sweeps she performed. She was still the only one that could see the _Tikbalangs_ coming in the dark of the night, after all. And sleeping through the day wasn’t going great, either. Too many critters running around. To many beings darting in and out of her range. She had spent months training to feel everything around her, and now she only wanted to block it out. She would have to talk to Shaak Ti about it.

Whenever they went back.

So, some nights later, she was back to sitting near the fire with 89.

“You look like shit.”

“Huh.”

“Two plus two?”

“Trophic chain.”

“Your brain cells are totally fried.”

“I just want to sleep”, she whined quite pitifully.

He stared at her with worry.

“I know how that feels”, he offered, and she turned to blink at him in confusion.

“The... the being so anxious that you can’t rest, even if you are exhausted.”

“Ah”, she voiced, her thought processes way slower than usual as she tried to decipher his mood, understand the feelings behind the words and put an answer together. “Does it happen often to you?”

He didn’t reply, and that was all the reply she needed.

“That sucks”, was the most emphatic thing she could bring herself to say. “But it’s understandable. The future is scary”, she nodded to no one in particular.

“You don’t look scared”, he commented with an incredulous huff.

“I’m very good at interiorizing shit”, Luna laughed briefly, before her growing headache made her hush. “Talking about it usually helps me, though.”

“Who do you talk it with?”

“Friends”, she shrugged. “Usually Shades.”

“You know Shades?”, 89 perked up.

“Yeah. You too?”

“Yes, we’re batchmates.”

“Oh, really?”, she asked with renewed cheerfulness. “That’s so cool! Maybe you could talk about it with him too”, _since it looks like we don’t have the right friendship level to talk to me..._ “He is great at listening!”

“Yeah. Yeah, he is...”, he sighed, but the undertone of: I’m not gonna bother him with my problems was way too obvious.

And Dani sighed, because she really didn’t have the mental capacity to deal with that now, but still made an effort and turned her body to him, taking in breath—

A bellow thundered right by them and she startled, body jerking as she shifted to have a leg under her. 89 jumped too, hands scrambling for his rifle, but the beast was too close, he should have gone for the mid-range blaster—

“TIKBALANG!!!!”, Dani screamed at the top of her lungs, and lunged to tackle 89.

She managed to push him away a bit, but she was in no shape to react fast enough. She tried to roll, get her feet under her again, unsheathe her vibroblade and go for the neck—

But she was too tired: mind and body too slow.

Ducky only managed to roll away from 89 and onto her back. Only enough to see the alien deer brandishing its mighty antlers, head swinging down on her.

Her agonizing shrieks startled the creature into letting her go.

And then blaster fire rained down on it as the others dashed out of the tent, drawing its attention.

Dani tried to cough, inhale, exhale, scream, all at the same time; and the pain was too much to pinpoint what was wrong, what should she do—

Something hooked up under her armpits, and suddenly she was being dragged. She screamed again, tried to kick _please let go let go let go PLEASE_

“It’s okay, it’s okay Dani; I got you, I got you—”

And then there was a merciless pressure on her chest and she choked on... on... she didn’t know. Her vision was blurry with tears, she could barely make out that there was a clone looming over her, and her mind betrayed her for a second – _Dad...—_ and she was going to die. That was what had happened to Drop and he had died so she was going to die. All had been for nothing. She would never see him again. She would never succeed where her father hadn’t. All her friends would go to war on die in it—

“Hold on, shit, hold on! You can’t die here, you have to change the system from the inside or some bullshit!”, 89 tried in desperation.

If she hadn’t been so lost to the agony of the spasms of her chest, she would have laughed. Better not, though. She would have ended up coughing blood.

“Come on, come on, you said it! Are you gonna give up now? Are you going to let yourself become a liar?!”

She coughed blood regardless, a blinding light coming from the sky blinding her.

“C-Cross my... h-heart ‘nd ‘pe... to die...”, she tried to grin, but it came more as a grimace.

89’s eyes widened, throwing more of his weight onto her before looking up at the sky.

She tried to follow his gaze, but only saw black.

 

Ducky, _called the voice, so familiar and yet so close to being forgotten._

Mom, _she called back, whirling in the void to try and see her._ Mom!

I’m here _, Lian spoke, her bluish from appearing right beside her, already cupping her cheek._ I’m here.

 _Dani flung herself at her, hugging her tight._ Don’t leave _, she pleaded;_ Don’t leave, please, I love you—

I love you too, _her mother replied without missing a beat._ I think about you every day. I am so proud of you, of the path you have set for yourself.

Please don’t leave _, she sobbed._ I don’t want to be alone anymore...

You aren’t _, she said, gently guiding her chin so their eyes could meet._ Your uncles are going to take care of you: Shades, and Pedal and Metal, and 89...

89 doesn’t care, _she sighed:_ We are barely friends.

89 is much more than you know, Ducky _, Lian said calmly._ He will keep you safe, like I used to.

But I want YOU, _she whined:_ I want dad...

We will be together again _, Lian said after a long pause._ But I want that to be in a long, long time from now—

Don’t leave! _, Dani pleaded, tightening her grip on her, on her mother;_ Please don’t go!

I love you, Dani _, she said, lowering her head to kiss her child’s hair._ It will be alright. You’ll never be alone. Never have been...

 _Nanay_!

 

Something pressed at her from all sides.

It was strangely warm and gave away easily. Her feet kicked on reflex and found _nothing_.

Her eyes flew open in a panic _drowning, drowning she was drowning_ and with it a pulse of the Force, rocking the whole mass that surrounded her and whatever contained it.

There were background noises, intermittent; she couldn’t make out what was happening beyond the blue and the uncomfortable warmth.

“She is panicking!”, Shaak Ti realised, and stepped closer to the glass. “Luna! Luna, it’s okay, you are in a bacta tank! You have to stop or you will brake it!”

The glass cracked.

“No, you cannot enter—!”, a medical droid protested as 89 pushed past it and into the room.

“What’s going on?!”, he asked, seeing with wide eyes how the thick glass cracked further.

“Get back! It’s going to give!”, the Jedi warned.

Inside the tank, Dani clawed at the breathing mask and kicked.

The glass shattered completely, heavy chunks of it falling heavily before being washed away by the wave of bacta that also dragged Luna out.

Hitting the ground was a relief, actually.

The goo still dragged her away before a couple hands took a hold of her. She coughed, struggling to orient herself and take off the breathing mask and whatever she had strapped around her torso. When she did, though, a dull pain flared all over her chest and she went still with a hiss, trying to make it go away.

“Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay: I got you”, 89 tried to soothe her, resting his hands on the sides of her head to direct her gaze to his face.

Dani coughed some more, blinking at him in confusion.

“Bring us a stretcher”, a Kaminoan ordered to the droid as Shaak Ti stepped closer to knelt down next to the girl.

“Dani”, she called. “Do you know where you are?”

She blinked, eyes stinging. Everything was so goddamn _white_.

“K... Kamino...?”, she tried.

“That’s right”, the Jedi nodded. “Hold on: we’ll get you on a bed soon enough.”

Ducky twisted around, trying to take stock of her surroundings and roll on her stomach, but 89 restrained her.

“Woah there: you don’t want to lie on your wounds”, he warned her.

_Wounds...?_

And all came crushing down on her: the jungle, the _Tikbalang_ , being impaled by its antlers and drowning with her own blood—

“Hey, hey!”, 89 called, softly slapping her cheek, “It’s okay, you are alright.”

Regardless, she bended over to look at her chest. She was wearing clean black bras and what appeared to be also black boyshorts, but they weren’t hers. She didn’t think they were at the moment, anyways. She tugged at the support harness with an annoyed whine, hating the tightness of it. Shaak Ti noticed that and started to unbuckle it. It seemed like 89 was about to help too for a second, but he seemed to decide otherwise, hands shyly hidden away. Dani frowned a bit at the behaviour, but didn’t comment; busy checking for scarring. There were patches of whiter tissue here and there _where the antlers stabbed me_ , she realised, but those were incredibly faint for what they could be, for how deeply they had been sunken into her flesh.

“What happened?”, she asked, voice rough and giving away the faint dizziness she felt.

“You were wounded by wildlife—“, Shaak Ti began.

“No”, she interrupted her, screwing her eyes shut for a moment, trying to pinpoint the wrongness of— _all_. “We... Why did we... get picked up?”

“Because you were gravely injured, of course”, the Kaminoan in the room answered instead, walking into her field of vision.

“Dani, this is Nala Se. She has been your physician since we reached Kamino”, the Jedi informed her.

The young human didn’t even acknowledge her, just stared at the white alien with wide eyes, breath picking up. And suddenly she clenched her teeth, rage burning wild in her eyes.

“Why?”, she chocked out. “Drop had been injured like this too! Why didn’t you come pick us up then?!”

89 stared wide-eyed at her from where he had backed up a bit when Nala Se had approached. He watched as tears of anger and grief welled up in Luna’s eyes, flowing immediately after as her exhales wheezed through her teeth. The emotions were sincere. The accusation clear. The implied ‘I don’t view myself more worthy than them’ too. And 89 could only stare at the girl lying on the cold floor: weak and exposed and vulnerable and still lashing out at the unfairness, even though it hadn’t affected _her_ situation badly.

“I suppose you are talking about the dead CC”, the Kaminoan replied slowly, raising an inexistent eyebrow in petulance, which caused Dani to bare her teeth. 89 had the distant feeling that if she could, she would lounge at her. “Although his death is a loss to the Grand Army of the Republic, he was not as a valuable asset as you are. When he was wounded, we agreed the experience would reinforce you and the other command clones. But when you were wounded, it became clear that we had to interfere to not lose a potential General.”

Ducky froze.

89 lowered his head at the reminder of how him and his brothers were seen.

“Luna”, Shaak Ti warned.

The air turned dense. The shards of glass on the floor started vibrating violently.

“Get out”, Dani snarled.

“Luna!”

The shards were flung to the ceiling: some ended up embed there, some fell back heavily.

“GET OUT!”, she spat to the Kaminoan, and the doctor had the decency to look scared. “I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to even _sense_ you! If it were on me I had you in a guillotine and _beheaded_!”

Shaak Ti had enough. She reached out to her and rested a hand on Dani’s collarbone. The younger realised too late what the Togruta was doing, so she wasn’t ready to fight against the sleep suggestion it packed. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and her head thumped when it hit the floor.

89 stared at her now unconscious form in shock.

“89, you are dismissed”, the Jedi said, but he did not react immediately. “89!”, she called again, and this time his head snapped towards her. “You may go now.”

He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to leave Dani to the mercy of the two women. But they wouldn’t hurt her, right? She wasn’t a clone: they couldn’t recondition or decommission her. She was safe, right?

With enormous effort, he left.

“My apologies, Nala Se”, Shaak Ti said as soon as the door had closed behind him. “I’m afraid she is too young to handle the loss of a companion in a mature way. I am certain her threats are hollow.”

“I will report this to Lama Su regardless”, she replied, “I do trust your word, General. But it is wise to keep record of any violent episodes she has.”

The Jedi was thankful for the decades of practice of keeping a calm exterior. Because that was bad.

“I understand. I will take it from here.”

Nala Se raised her chin, looking down at Dani for a long moment.

“As you wish.”

 

She couldn’t look at them in the face.

Not when the high ups had decided to let one of them die, but save her when under the same circumstances.

She couldn’t handle Shades’ and 89’s kindness. Couldn’t handle Kov’s and Lace’s neutrality nor the resentment in Ruler’s eyes nor 82’s pity nor Pebble’s avoidance.

So Dani dived into training and the sparse ‘missions’ Shaak Ti had for her. She couldn’t save Drop, but she could help others. At least as far as the Jedi let her. She had been warned that Nala Se’s attention might be on her for a while. The last thing she had needed was a scolding when he woke up, but she had had it regardless. Treatening a Kaminoan with behading had been a dumb move, yeah.

But _damn_ , it had felt good to see fear in her eyes. It had felt _great_.

 

89 turned to be as stubborn as his batchmate.

And Shades didn’t relent in his efforts to cheer her up.

“It’s not your fault”, the medic tried again.

“I know”, she replied again. “But still.”

“’But still’ nothing! There’s nothing you could have done to get them to save Drop! Nothing!”

“I could kill them all”, she snarled, tears already coating her cheeks in the privacy of a storm. “Cloak myself and murder them one at a time.”

“And then what?”, Shades asked, with more sadness than reproach. “What about the plans you told me about? I know it hurts, I know it’s unfair; but you won’t be able to make things better if you loose your mind now. Not for you, and not for us.”

She bobbed her head in acknowledgement.

“Yeah”, she croaked. “Yeah, I need... I need to keep a cold mind.”

“Exactly!”, he perked up immediately, just for his brow to furrow. “But be careful with that too. Keep a too-cold mind, and your heart will end up frozen too.”

“Cold mind, warm heart”, she chanted with her eyes closed. “Got it.”

“And eyes open. Always keep your eyes open”, he reminded her playfully.

Her reply was a forced giggle, and Shades sighed at his apparent failure.

“Hey, Shades”, she said suddenly after a while.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know if I ever thanked you. For being there when I need someone and keep trying even when I’m making it hard”, she admitted without quite looking at him.

And it wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t ideal because she wasn’t okay. But it was a sign that the kind and caring girl he had met some months ago was still in there.

“Always”, he replied.

 

Ducky was going out to the platforms a lot as of late. It couldn’t be called a quiet place, not with the incessant rain and thunder, but it was were there was bound to be less people. She went out to take large gulps of air in between training, or doing wide detours when Shaak Ti sent her _here and there to collect this, deliver that, say these words to the clone cleaning in the third hallway of the fourth floor of sector—_

She had been ignoring and/or shaking 89 off her trail, but it was starting to get annoying. Sure: she feared his possible rage, or pity, or awkward attempt at making her feel better. The whole Drop affair was starting to numb, to be honest. It still stung, but it was numbing.

So she bolted out into a platform and leaned against the wall next to the door, glaring at it. Not even ten seconds later, it opened and 89 stepped out, looking around. His whole body jerked when he saw her right there, and Dani couldn’t help but snicker at his almost-shriek.

“Aren’t you tired of following me?”, she asked as rudely as she could muster.

89 seemed to make himself a bit small at that, almost taking a step back, but he straightened quickly.

“Can we talk?”, he asked carefully but straight to the point. “Somewhere private?”

“My room is not safe for most kinds of conversations at the moment”, she replied with a raised eyebrow. “Unless you know of a better place, this is the most private I have to offer.”

“Here”, he deadpanned, as if he couldn’t believe it. “Soaking in the rain.”

“What’s better than a thunderous storm to avoid bugs?”, she shrugged.

He just stood there for a moment.

“Why would you be bugged?”

“Reasons”, Dani sighed, and just gestured towards the edge of the platform.

89 made to go the way she had pointed, steps uncertain as he checked that she was coming too. She sulked all the way to the edge before lowering herself to the wet metal, feet dangling over the roaring ocean hundreds of meters bellow.

“Be careful”, he warned her anxiously.

“I know”, she huffed in annoyed reply. “What did you want to talk about?”

He gingerly sat down next to her, fingers fidgeting with uncertainty.

“How are you doing?”, he asked instead.

And his voice was... Worried. Sincere. Totally disarming. Dani couldn’t keep up with the angry façade at his tone.

“...A bit better”, she replied, subdued.

“I’m glad to hear that”, he said with the same soft tone that would soon backfire and turn incredibly annoying. “When... When you were hurt, you said something and I... I thought you were going to die”, he conceded, voice small.

“I don’t recall”, Dani mused, trying hard to remember.

“Something about... hoping to die?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die?”, she offered, tilting her head in question.

“Yes? Yes, I think so. I thought... I thought you didn’t want to live anymo—”

“Oh, no no no!”, she shook her open palms to get him to stop. “It’s not a literal sentence! It means that what I had said previously was sincere...! Whatever I said...”, she shrugged, also not remembering that part.

89 blinked at her in a mix of relief and awe. Thunder roared in the distance.

“That you were going to change things”, he provided.

“Ah. Yes. I will try my best.”

They stayed in silence for a long moment at her curt reply. Dani could feel 89 gathering courage to go on.

“How?”, he finally asked.

“Why do you even care?!”, she snapped on the defensive, snarling at him. “We don’t even know each other that much! Just because we chatted a couple nights and we saved each other’s life that doesn’t mean I trust you! _I_ don’t know you and _you_ don’t know me!”

89 leaned back at her outburst, looking hurt. Dani felt guilty immediately, and looked down at the water in shame while another part of her tried to convince her that what she was doing was fine: keeping your guard up was fine, building walls to keep your secrets and plans safe was fine—

“I’m _terrified_ of being a commander”, 89 suddenly said.

Ducky’s gaze jerked up to meet his eyes with surprise.

“I just— _I can’t_. I can’t hold all those lives in my hands, I can’t send them out on the field knowing they are going to die. I _don’t want_ the power to do that. I can’t bear the responsibility—It’s not an honour, it’s a curse...”, he was shaking like a leaf, and for a moment Dani feared that he was getting ill under the inclement rain. “And I keep trying to get demoted, to just be a sniper and get ordered around instead of giving the orders, but every time I fail, every time I’m under what is expected of me I get a threat of _disappearing_ , and I can’t, I _can’t_ with the pressure—”

At that point Dani couldn’t take it any more and lunged to hug him, guiding his head to her shoulder and softly rubbing his back, trying to help him calm down.

“—they either get me decommissioned or I will shoot myself as soon as I am deployed—“, he kept ranting into her soaked shirt.

“Hey. Hey, hey hey hey none of that”, she called, a hand drifting to caress the back of his head, to get his attention without scaring him.

But she said nothing, not really ready for what had just been confessed to her. He quieted down too, clinging to her as he got his breathing under control.

Truth be told, that had been... quite a display of trust. Every word 89 had said was a reason to get him killed, at least in the eyes of the Kaminoans. He had showed all his cards to her: his machinations, his doubts to the point of feeling cornered and hopeless...

She gulped down, tears mixing with the rain drops.

“You are my uncle”, she whispered into his ear.

He went rigid for an eternal second before pulling back, staring at her with wide eyes, gaze darting to every detail of her features. 89 opened his mouth, closed it again without uttering a sound. Maybe he was about to deny it, maybe he was about to ask a question. But the silence stretched and Dani was getting nervous.

“That’s why I want to change things. That’s why I _have_ to change things”, she went on.

“I—“, he stuttered, choking on air, but it seemed like the shock was slowly draining away. “Who’s your... your father?”

“His name was... _is_ Sol”, she rectified herself. “I don’t know where he is. But I’m going to look for him once I’m General”, she elaborated, her eyes drifting to the ocean below again.

89 felt like maybe he should say something in acknowledgement, or ask more questions... But the seconds ticked by and the moment was lost, and he had nothing else to do but let his eyes drift to the furious waves and process the secret he had been revealed.

“My mother was from Terra. It’s a planet in another galaxy. She was a rocket engineer. Cleverest person I have ever known”, she continued eventually, but her voice trailed off.

“What happened to her?”, he asked carefully.

“She died”, Ducky replied, but did not elaborate on that.

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks”, she replied, emotionless.

89 sighed internally, knowing how hollow words could feel when deep in grief. Actions were often much more meaningful.

“...Could I...? Could I have her name? To speak it during the Hour of Remembrance?”

She turned her head to him with a puzzled expression.

“What’s that?”

“It’s, uh, a clone tradition, I suppose you could call it. At certain times, we reunite and say the names of those who have marched away out loud, to keep their memory alive.”

Dani’s eyes softened gradually as she understood the meaning of the gesture.

“And you would do that... for my mother?”, she asked with heartfelt awe at the fact that, despite not knowing her, he would want to pay homage to her.

“Well, yes. If that’s okay for you, of course, you don’t have to—”

“Lian. My mother’s name was Lian. Lian Luna”, she offered with a shy smile.

“Lian”, 89 repeated slowly, tasting the name on his tongue. “That’s a beautiful name.”

Ducky’s smile grew a bit wider, and then she blinked in realisation.

“If you like it, you could use it”, she suggested carefully, gauging his reaction. She didn’t want him to end up with a name he didn’t really wanted just because he feared offending her.

“I, uh, I don’t know, it was your mother’s name...”, he replied nervously. His body language gave away that he really liked how it sounded, but didn’t want to intrude and raise possible sad memories.

“Well, you don’t have to use it exactly if it doesn’t feel right to you. You could be... Lia. Or Li. Or Lin. Or Ian—”

“Ian”, he spoke up, tasting the sound of it. “Ian”, he repeated, and a smile tugged at his lips, lighting illuminating his eyes for a small, beautiful moment: his eyes alight with hope. “I like it.”

Dani turned her body to him, offering a hand.

“It’s nice to meet you, uncle Ian”, she smirked playfully.

“Hah”, he laughed nervously, shaking her hand. “Never expected to have a title like that...”

“Well, uh, no responsibility comes with it. I mean: you don’t have to parent me or look after me or anything!”, she supplied, since he had just confessed that too much pressure was threatening to tip him over the edge.

“Maybe... Maybe that’s something I could look forward”, he mused, his head a bit dipped in shyness.

“Oh. Well”, she chuckled nervously. “Be my guest.”

A violent shiver ran up her spine, not related to their conversation.

“Maybe we should go back inside before we catch a pneumonia...”, Ducky suggested, standing up carefully to avoid any slip-ups near the edge of the platform, and offered her hand to Ian again.

“Yeah”, he nodded, accepting her help to get up.

They stared at each other’s eyes for a moment, and then Dani let go of him and turned towards the closest entrance, waiting for him to walk beside her.

“Hey, Ian”, she said as they neared the door.

“Yes?”

“It’s a secret, okay?”

“So you _do_ trust me now?”, he teased her with a raised eyebrow.

Dani elbowed him playfully, doing her best to hide her smile but failing quite spectacularly.

“I ought to trust my soon-to-be Commander, don’t I?”, she replied without turning to look at him.

She reached the door, but he was standing stock still where he was when she had spoken.

“Well?”, Luna asked carefully as she opened the door to the warm indoors, reading herself to handle a possible refusal.

“...Are you certain?”, he asked, almost inaudible under the rain.

And the self-loathing was so evident in that short sentence that Dani could only think of one answer:

“Yes.”

 

Final Command Test.

The seven of them stood in a neat line, succeeding in different degrees at concealing their nervousness. After all, they hadn’t even been told what the test was about. A writing? An oral presentation? Battle Royale? Nobody knew.

Dani hoped really hard that it wasn’t an oral presentation.

Seconds ticked by, feeling as long as days, but finally their main instructor entered the room with Shaak Ti and Lama Su.

“This is your time to shine, troopers”, their instructor started. “It’s very easy: you will have 20 men each under your command. You have thirty minutes to organize yourselves before you step into the simulation. We’ll be evaluating your initial position plus adaptability on the field. It goes without saying that the one last standing will be the one with the best grade”, he added, eyes drifting over all of them. “Each one of you will be assigned a colour. Step forwards in order for it to be given, and once you have it you can go and meet your men before stepping into the armoury.”

Kov was given a dull red. Pebble, green. 82, violet. Ruler, sky blue. Lace, orange. Ian, black. And Dani was left with white.

“Clock’s ticking, gentlemen. And lady.”

Ducky took half a second to glare daggers at him before striding towards the continuous room, where rows of troopers in training armour with patches of colour were standing at attention. The command trainees scattered, searching for their groups.

“Hi”, Dani started when she found the ones wearing plain white armour. “At rest”, she added, because who knows how long they had been waiting like that. The troopers exchanged quick glances, and gingerly relaxed. “I am Dani Luna and I will be commanding you. I will love to talk to you and know your names, but I would rather visit the armoury first to see what can we work with. Any objections?”

“Sir, no—ma’am?”, one in the first row started energetically, under to trail off at the doubt.

She released a quiet chuckle.

“Both are fine”, she nodded. “Let’s go, then”, she gestured and they all trailed off after her. “Your name?”, she added, watching to other leaders through the corners of her eyes. They had noticed that she was already moving and some seemed to have decided to speed up their introductions.

“Sergeant Bats, sir!”, he saluted, striding beside her. “Sergeants Tweet, Box and Ess are also present!”

“Cool”, she nodded. “We can split in four groups of five, then; or five groups of four if necessary...”, she started muttering as they entered the armoury. Guerrilla was her speciality, after all, but could they handle a fight against six opponents like that?

Those were slim changes, and were becoming even slimmer as minutes stretched and her group brainstormed, but the ideas were pretty standard and too predictable, and the others seemed to have already set their course and were already arming themselves and picking up ammunition.

“Ma’am, if we don’t choose soon we’re going to be left with the scraps...”, a trooper she still didn’t knew the name of commented nervously.

“I know, I know”, she tried to soothe him as she chewed her nails, striding along the corridors of the room, eyes darting around for something, a spark of inspiration, something that she could use that hadn’t been explained in class—

She saw them discarded at the end of a dark _cul-de-sac_ , and her eyes lighted up.

“Sir...?”

Dani turned to them with an excited smile.

“Have you guys ever heard the phrase: ‘Modern problems require ancient solutions’?”

 

The simulations room was set into a dusty plane, with vague slopes that could barely be called hills and grey rocks of a decent size scattered around for cover.

That wasn’t going to be a problem for White Team, though.

“Take positions”, the instructor’s voice ordered through the speakers.

The area was wide to compensate for the lack of hiding spots. Dani’s group rushed to go as far from the other teams as possible.

From the watching room, Lama Su narrowed his eyes at the white dots.

“Are they carrying... shields?”

Shaak Ti, who had been trying not to rest her attention on Luna for fear of affecting her negatively, carefully slid her eyes towards her.

“It appears so.”

“Begin!”, the instructor bellowed.

“Alright, men”, Dani breathed, and they all tensed around her at the ready. “Tortoise formation!”

The shields shifted and flowed around those who were holding weapons instead as they retreated further into the formation. In seconds, they were all in position: encased in a white-grey box, in the middle of a terrace with nothing their opponents could use for cover when coming to them.

And so White Team waited, the sounds of battle carrying from what seemed like kilometres but were scarcely one.

“...How long are we going to stay here?”, eventually somebody asked.

“The longer, the better”, Dani replied, not even a bit annoyed at their restlessness. It was normal. They were trained for waaaaaay more direct manoeuvres. “The point of this isn’t getting the most kills: it’s being the last one standing. Staying like this we can save up energy while they thin their lines. And when they do come for us, we’ll handle it.”

“Uh, sir”, Ess cleared his throat. “I think we have been spotted.”

“How many?”

“Two. No, three. I think they might be scouts.”

“So they _did_ realize we weren’t there. Finally”, she laughed nervously, checking her chrono. They had gone unnoticed by nearly forty minutes. “Tell me what you see.”

“Blue team, sir. They seem to be rallying to strike an offensive.”

Blue? Who was in charge of blue? She didn’t recall. A quick sweep pinged Ruler standing among the unknown men.

_Ugh_

“Alright. Spines, get ready.”

“Sir, yes sir!”, five men chanted, and they shifted closer to the direction the enemies would come from.

“Can I have some binoculars?”, she asked the Spotter keeping watch of their back.

“Here, ma’am.”

“Thanks. Keep an eye out and tell us if immediately if you see something suspicious. Trying to divide our attention could be one of their first ideas, and if we get breached we will have to scatter. If we can get out of the mess at all.”

“Sir, yes sir!”, the trooper saluted with renewed energy, now that he was reminded of his important (but honestly quite boring, who could blame him?), task.

With that settled, Dani kneeled next to Ess to spy through one of the few slits between the shields.

“Okay, here they come”, she informed, loud and clear.

The troopers holding shields tensed, ready to fend off against tackles if necessary.

“Why are they coming straight at us? Are they dumb?”, Dani couldn’t help but wonder. There was literally no cover between them and the approaching blue troopers. There were nearly 200 meters of distance between them.

“Well, sir. They don’t know what’s coming their way”, Box smirked as he readjusted his sniper rifle.

“True. Let’s give them a taste, then. Open fire at will.”

Five snipers methodically shot down the opponents that got in range. When the two first fell to the ground, unconscious, their comrades startled and turned around, trying to escape the deadly scopes. They still managed to take down one more, the Spotters reported.

The others cheered, though it was short-lived as the Blue Team was retreating behind the nearest slope of dust and they were left with nothing else to do.

“Now what?”, somebody else asked eventually.

“It’s unlikely that they will come back at us like that again”, Dani mused. “They are probably going to try to flank us, so Spotters: stay sharp”, she cheered them, returning the scopes she had borrowed to their owner. “Paladins: if you need to stretch now is a good moment. Try to stay fresh for when the pressure inevitably falls on us.”

“Sir?”, Bats inquired.

“If there’s other teams standing, they are probably going to ally against us”, she sighed. “Which means attacks from several fronts, which means troopers reaching our shields. So that’s that.”

“What if there’s still six other teams standing, sir...?”

“Unlikely. Possible, but unlikely.”

“And then?”

“Then we are fucked”, she chuckled. “Nah, kidding. I’m positive that we can hold our ground. In fact, I think we should _let them_ ambush us...”

 

There was an assault: blue and red and black involved. They circled them, out of the snipers reach. It was a bit unnerving, but if they didn’t advance, they would reach a dead point.

And White Team still had all its members.

“Luna! Surrender!”, somebody called.

“How about no?!”, she called back.

“Then we will attack!”

“Sounds good to me!”, she shrugged, raising a brief bout of laughter from her companions.

A minute of tension followed: the three commanders reviewing and giving the final approval to their strike.

“CHARGE!!!”, the order finally came.

And the snipers opened fire, waiting for their opponents to be easy targets as to not waste ammunition and shooting down as many was they could. It became a steady, methodical work, but eventually they were overrode.

“Drop the rifles, drop the rifles!”, Dani ordered, and they scrambled to pick up the blasters pilled on the ground. “Paladins, part!”

The shields shifted, leaving windows for the blasters to spit rounds and rounds of lights bolts through. Their enemies kept falling like flies, but now White Team was under an enormous pressure.

“Somebody getting bored?”, she chided.

“No, sir!”, somebody dared to reply, and she laughed.

The Paladins struggled against the ones that reached the shields, pushing them back into the blast bolts way while trying to avoid getting their shields reaped apart from them.

“Surrender, Luna!”, somebody called again. _Ruler._ “You cannot hold forever!”

“Well, that’s not the point of this!”, she called back.

“We’ll shred you in minutes! Spar yourself the humiliation!”

Dani glanced at the Sergeants under her command. They nodded: time to make their bets.

“Oh, yeah, you’ll have us in minutes: and then what? Your going to shoot Kov before _I_ hit the ground?!”, she hollered.

And tension rippled through the Force.

“No!”, Ruler bellowed. “No, we stand together and defeat you! And then we settle this with—!”

He didn’t get a chance to finish: shot unconscious by Kov himself.

“Blue team: you are out”, the instructor spoke through the speakers.

“Regroup and recoup!”, Dani ordered, with the pressure on them decreased.

The shields snapped in place again, but they were a couple men down and their defence was faulty.

“Alright, forget the Tortoise formation: make a wall! Make a wall!”

Her men hurried to shift and do as she ordered: protecting them but leaving cracks so those with blasters could shoot. Dani herself was helping with that, too: bringing down opponents in black and red.

Black. Who was black? She made a sweep, but the only familiar and conscious life-Force was Kov’s. She stood still for a second, expanding her range.

Ian.

She gasped, trying to lean away from the slit of the shields, but she had seen it too late.

Headshot.

 

Third place wasn’t so bad, since that had landed her right into graduation. In fact: all of them had graduated, so the podium wasn’t that important.

The seven of them stood under the rain as the instructor gave a pep-talk. Shaak Ti was there, and so was Alpha-17 and Taun We and other instructors she had had. Shades, Pedal and Metal were somewhere behind them, also getting graduated. That made her feel a special warmth inside: like when they held an event at school and her parents would come to see her. It was silly. But at least the rain didn’t feel so cold. The world didn’t feel so cold.

“Congratulations, CC-8889, for being the first of your promotion”, Shaak Ti nodded his way, and Ian stepped forwards to receive his insignia.

“Dani Luna”, she called after all the Commanders had gone through the same ritual. She stepped forwards, and suddenly it was a great effort to keep her chin up. “Congratulations on becoming a General of the GAR”, she nodded, and placed the insignia over what would be her combat armour. “You con pick up your lightsaber in my office as soon as we are done here”, she added in a whisper.

“Thank you, sir”, she replied, as an overwhelming feeling of euphoria flooded her from the inside out.

 _I did it_ , she wanted to scream. _I DID IT!!!!!!_

Dani and Ian walked side by side into the hangar of their new Star Destroyer.

“Wow”, she said shakily. “This is...”

“Awesome”, he completed with a wide smile, looking up above.

“I was going to say huge: as in size and responsibility, but yep”, she nodded, looking around.

“Who’s going to be driving?”

“Some guy named Kasta. I have to meet with him this afternoon to get acquainted and all that.”

“Oh, your first boring meeting! Are you excited?”

She elbowed him in the hip.

“Keep that up and I will _order_ you to come”, she threatened playfully.

“And here I thought you were going to be a compassionate General...”, he rolled his eyes dramatically.

Ducky snorted and pushed him slightly before something else caught her attention.

“Hey, look! They left our battalion’s paint over there!”

She skipped to it, with Ian walking behind.

“Did they let you choose colour?”

“Not really”, she shrugged. “But I won’t complain. Black looks fine on you. Or at least that’s the feeling that I got. Before being headshot, you know”, she narrowed her eyes at him.

The Commander face-palmed, trying to hide his nervous smile.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“Headshot by my own Commander. How far the mighty have fallen...”

“I am so sorry...”

“What for? You got first place! That’s awesome, man!”, she patted his back.

Ian took his hand away from his face to study her. She seemed legitimately happy for him. His attention turned to the black paint and brushes on the floor, and his still white armour. He leaned down and picked up a thick brush, dipping it into the can of void.

“What are you doing?”, she asked, curious.

“I am never betraying you again”, Ian said, and painted a diagonal over his left pectoral. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Another diagonal sealed the deal.

 

“ _Vod_!”, a cadet looking into his mid teens dashed towards a clone working in the hangar, coming to a halting stop and trying to catch his breath. Two more than seemed to be from his same batch came behind him.

“Can I help you, _vod’ika_?”, the older asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m... looking for... General Luna...!”, he managed to say, looking up at him with hopeful eyes.

“I’m sorry to say this, kid: but the 0th has already left.

“What?! No! They were scheduled to leave in three hours!”

“Yeah, but I heard the Chancellor himself called for the new General and they had to leave. You are too young for deployment, anyways”, he added as he looked him up and down.

“We trained together!”, the cadet replied angrily.

“I doubt that would have gotten you an audience with her”, the older scolded.

“Hey, get lost, man!”, another one of the cadets hissed angrily, looking ready to get into a fistfight.

“Hey, hey, hey, Wing! Let’s calm down”, the quiet one said, taking his brother by the arm. “Thank you for your help, sir. Goodbye”, he added, and started steering his batchmates away.

The first one’s gaze lingered in the sky.

“You didn’t need to stop me, Clock!”, Wing protested, shaking off his restrictive hand.

“Keep it cool for once!”, Clock hissed, and turned to look at his other brother worriedly, who was still staring up: eyes humid with tears but none escaping.

“I wanted to tell her the name I have chosen...”, he lamented quietly.

Wing and Clock exchanged a sad look.

“Come on, Laa’ka”, Wing said, slipping an arm around his shoulders as Clock did the same from his other side. “I’m sure someday you’ll get to introduce yourself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I a little shit? Of course I am! Maybe some of y'all will want to re-read chapter 1 with new eyes  
> Also: me, planting the seeds for Dani hating Nala Se: huehuehuehuehue  
> Dani "Ducky" Luna: a fucking mess that got better and will continue to get better  
> Btw!!! Kaddak is not an OC!!! You guys can read about him and the mysterious clone in the comic Star Wars: Darth Vader and The Cry of Shadows!!
> 
> Did you guys know that "cul-de-sac" is a Catalan phrase? The French copied it from us. It literally means "Ass/butt/bottom of a sack"


	42. Hijo De La Luna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: imma gonna write chapter of Aleluia living happily in the Temple!! :D
> 
> also me:

_“Hallelujah... Hallelujah...”_

_The word was spoken softly, in a way no-one had ever spoken to him before. He was pressed against warmth, and the rest of the world swayed slightly, but it wasn’t unpleasant. More words were said, but that one was the more constant, and, therefore; the one he latched onto._

_“My mom gave me my name.”_

_“We don’t have moms”, Spade pouted at him._

_“But I do! Moms give you a name and sing you lullabies and someone did that to me, so I have a mom!”_

_“You must have dreamt it”, Pillow tried to cushion their confrontation yet again, trying to explain the situation to him as if he were dumb._

_“I didn’t!”_

_“You are a liar! Stop making up things!”, Talon snarled._

_“But—! But I’m not...!”, he tried to defend himself, stepping backwards, trying to get away from the other cadets closing up on him._

_He bumped against something and turned around, startled. A Kaminoan’s cold eyes glared down as they loomed over him._

_“DON’T BE STUPID. CLONES DON’T HAVE MOTHERS.”_

Aleluia gasped awake, his eyes fixing on the fluorescent stickers shaped like stars and moons and galaxies all over the ceiling of his room in the Jedi Temple: a gift of many that came from Dani.

_From mom_

Yeah, that was right. All this time, he had been right. The boy let out a shaky exhale and curled under the cover of his bed, enjoying the warmth trapped with him. Somehow, his vulptex plushy had ended up by his feet, so he reached out to smooth the sparkly silver fur used to imitate the crystalline texture.

“Sorry, Beskar”, he told the toy. “Looks like I’m still a restless sleeper...”

He hugged the plushy in apology for a long moment, and then kicked the covers aside.

He had organised his toys the afternoon before, so his feet didn’t find any obstacles as he made his way to the refresher. Aleluia did what he had to do, washed his hands and face and dressed up with his loose Jedi clothes. He paused a moment, staring at his reflection in the mirror. Sometimes it was still a bit weird, wearing a colour that wasn’t blue. And sometimes it wasn’t weird at all, because most Jedis wore brown. So it was just like switching uniforms, right? GAR uniform, Jedi uniform. Same thing; different colour.

His thoughts derailed as his eyes jumped to his unkempt hair, and he walked closer to the mirror to fix it. Maybe it still looked messy, even after he worked on it for several minutes, but there was a difference. He couldn’t quite explain it: he just knew that now it was as it should be. As he wanted it to be.

“Good morning, grandma”, he greeted with a small smile as he walked into the main room and over to the table were Yaddle was sitting: an assortment of dishes littering the surface.

“Good morning, Ale”, the Jedi Master smiled warmly. “Sleep well, have you?”

“Yeah”, he replied, taking a seat in his human-sized chair. When he had come to live with her, Yaddle had had all of her furniture built to her necessities, but she hadn’t even brought up that she would have to accommodate him, and bought a taller table and a special chair so she could sit at his height.

The elder gave him an unimpressed look, but it went away in a blink, replaced by much kinder eyes.

“If something bothers you, you know you can tell me, hm?”, she said carefully, helping herself to her breakfast.

Aleluia looked down for a moment in uneasiness. He didn’t want to lie to Yaddle, but he didn’t want to worry her either.

“It was just a dream”, he replied softly, dragging a plate with toast closer to him.

Yaddle sighed quietly. It was not the first time they had this conversation. This time, she decided not to push him. He tended to hush and isolate himself when pressured.

Ale ended up just eating half a toast with jelly before he stood up and tidied up everything that was meant for him.

“Ah: there, leave that”, Yaddle gestured loosely in dismissal as the young boy set to wash the dishes. He paused and looked over his shoulder to her. “Visit Master Che you wanted to, yes? Go, go; today I’ll clean”, she ushered him away with a soft smile.

“...You sure?”, he hesitated, eyeing the dished piled up in the sink.

“Your part you always do. A day of not doing what you are supposed to do every now and then, healthy is”, she snickered.

“He”, Ale laughed half-heartedly, still unsure about it. He casted one last glance at the chore he was abandoning, but Yaddle had assured him that it was alright, so despite the slight anxiousness it caused him, he guessed it wouldn’t be an issue. “Thank you, Yaddle”, he said politely, and trotted to her to kiss her cheek.

The old woman gave a warm chuckle and watcher her grand-Padawan go.

“A nice day, you may have!”, she called after him.

“Likewise!”, came the reply through the already closed door.

Yaddle leaned back on her sit and sighed, closing her eyes for a long moment.

She was doing her best to help Aleluia, but the path would be long and hard... And she suspected it would only finally get better with the war ended and Aleluia’s mother— _mothers_ , she was suddenly reminded, because Dani had mentioned an special someone more than once—by his side.

 

The young clone rhythmically pushed the lab’s buzz for a couple seconds before stepping back and grabbing his wrists behind his back. The door opened soon after and Vokara glanced side to side before her eyes drifted down and saw him.

“Ah, Aleluia! Good morning”, she greeted him with a smile as she stepped aside so he could come in.

“Good morning, Master Che”, he greeted back, unhooking his arms from behind him and accepting the invitation to step further into the lab. “I won’t be long”, he added, not wanting to be a bother.

“I wouldn’t mind if you did”, she reassured him with a gentle nod. “There’s nothing dangerous in the greenhouse at the moment, but please: refrain from touching anything on the tables outside of it; we have been working with some infectious bacteria, and despite the precautions we already take, we would like to avoid any possible scares.”

“Understood”, Ale blinked at her, attentive as usual, and trotted towards the greenhouse.

The warm air enveloped him as the doors closed behind him. The difference in temperature had been very bothering at the beginning, but the treasure it held was worth it. In a corner of the greenhouse, apples, watermelons, tangerines and strawberries grew in abundance.

 _These are your mother’s_ , Che had told him soon after he arrived to the Temple. _And so they are yours, too._

He had been left in awe when the Jedi Master had told him that those fruits came from Dani’s homeplanet, in a whole different galaxy.

 _Mom is a human, but she is an alien_ , was a strange but ultimately innocuous thought that popped up in his mind every now and then.

Aleluia regarded the fruits carefully. He finally climbed up the elevated soil and the tangerine tree: picking up the squishiest. He was about the climb down, but saw another one that looked yummy and picked it too. His boots thumped softly as he touched the ground and he took a minute to just lean against the bark and look up at the canopy. How ideal it would be if it was a real sun shinning from above, an honest breeze wheezing by and shaking the leaves... It was really tempting to just slide down and sit there for hours, but he had classes to attend.

So Aleluia stood up, gathered a handful of strawberries and walked back to the lab.

“Here”, he chimed up at Vokara, whose body didn’t flinch even half an inch as she handled a micro pipette.

“Give me a second”, she spoke quickly, still mostly focused on the dilution of the bacterial culture she was doing. Che closed the lid of the small tube and scribbled a tag on it before setting it down with some others and turning to Aleluia. “You were saying?”

“Here”, the boy repeated, offering his hand full of strawberries. “Thank you for taking care of the trees”, he said shyly.

“Oh”, the Healer perked up, carefully taking off her protective gloves and dumping them on a biohazard bin. “You are very welcome”, she smiled, accepting the gift.

“I gotta go”, he excused himself, eyeing the door, shaking off the feeling that he needed to be dismissed. “Have a nice day.”

“You too”, she smiled, placing a strawberry in her mouth as she turned to the gloves packet to put on a new set.

That was as good as a dismissal he was going to get from somebody he wasn’t under orders of, Aleluia had learned. So he turned on his heels and walked quickly to the exit, still a bit tense, half-expecting a scolding for leaving without explicit permission.

But the door closed behind him, and nobody had stopped him.

“Ale!”, a chirpy voice called, and Aleluia startled, head whipping to his left to relax when he recognised Numa. “Morning!”, she greeted, coming to a halt next to him with a smile.

She wore white Jedi robes, but had kept her hat. Under her arm, now more meaty than it had been when she arrived, there was her purple and yellow plushy. Aleluia glanced at it in disapproval. Toys were supposed to stay within one’s quarters: not to be paraded around, even less when they were headed to class!

“Morning”, he replied a bit too dryly instead. He cringed at his own tone. That hadn’t been nice. He remembered the two tangerines in his hands and offered her one.

“Oh!”, Numa perked up, and took it gratefully. “Thanks!”, she said, and made to bite down.

“No, no!”, Ale rushed to stop her. She blinked at him, confused. “You have to peel it first! Like this, see?”, he showed her, peeling his own. “The peel tastes very bad.”

“Ah, I watch!”

“I _see_ ”, he corrected her softly.

“I see!”, she repeated, and dug her fingernails into the hard peel.

Aleluia watched her for a second more before turning, heading to class while eating his own tangerine.

Nerra skipped beside him, apparently enjoying the fruit.

“Thanks!”, she repeated. “I like a lot! Like apple!”

“Heh”, he chuckled briefly. “I’m glad.”

 

_“Aleluia”, Yaddle had called him with a serious tone that she barely sported when addressing him. It had made him tense up, thinking he had done something wrong and was about to be scolded. “A new Initiate soon will be arriving. From a warring planet, she comes. A lot it would mean, if you could greet her, make her feel comfortable.”_

_He had relaxed at that. It was a favour, a small chore he could perform._

_“Sure”, he had answered, thinking nothing of it._

_She was not what he had expected._

_Ale had not expected to receive a little girl, thin, too thin; eyes wide and nervous and not speaking even a bit of Basic as she clutched her plushy close. A member of the Wolfpack gently nudged her to step towards him and Yaddle. She looked up at him with pleasing eyes. The trooper sighed._

_“Come on, kid: I promise you will be alright here.”_

_It looked like she was about to cry, but then Yaddle spoke._

_The girl whirled towards her with shock and spoke quickly, her grip on the clone’s hand loosening a bit. Yaddle nodded and spoke some more, gesturing to him. Aleluia caught his name being spoken, so he guessed he was being introduced._

_“Ale”, Yaddle finally said. “Numa this is. Helped her escape the war, your mother has._

_“Mom sent her?”, he blinked in surprise. “Is she... is she supposed to be my sister, then...?”, he asked, with a note of fear._

_Fear of being replaced._

_“That, I do not know”, The Jedi Master shook her head. “But perhaps, for you to decide, that is.”_

_He would have asked further for that, but Numa stepped into his personal space, offering a hand and saying something he didn’t understand._

_“Greeting you, she is”, Yaddle explained._

_“Hi”, he said shyly, gripping her thin fingers._

_“Hi!”, she parroted with excitement._

_But Aleluia’s attention was now on her frail limbs. He had never seen a malnourished person before. Back on Kamino, they were all well-fed, and only loss weight if they were gravely ill, which didn’t happen often in the sterile halls where they were raised. And he had been meaning to keep the fruit to have as a snack somewhen in the afternoon, but..._

_“Here”, he said, taking out the apple from the pocket in his ropes and offering to her. “It’s food. For you.”_

_It was snatched from his hands at unbelievable speed. He only knew what had become of the apple when he heard the loud crunch of biting and tearing. Aleluia looked up to see Numa crying and hiccupping as she ate._

_“Wha—What’s wrong?”, he asked, hands hovering in front of him, unsure as to what to do. He turned to Yaddle, at a loss._

_The elder looked at him with a sad smile._

_“Grateful, she is.”_

_He had been quietly playing with her in his room: pointing at different toys and saying their names so Numa could learn Basic vocabulary when Yaddle knocked on the door. The children stopped their game to stare at her, expectant. The Jedi said something to Numa, who scrambled to stand up and run to the living room._

_“Visit Numa has”, she explained, a sadness dragging in her voice that made Aleluia frown in worry._

_“Is everything alright?”_

_“No”, she sighed, and turned to follow the girl._

_Aleluia stood up too, but hesitated. Should he stay in his room? Should he come out? If grandma was having a hard time, he should be there, to support her like she supported him. Being along when sad sucked._

_Slowly, he walked to the door frame, half-hidden in his room but with a good view of the scene before him._

_Numa was hugging an armoured trooper, minus his helmet –he wore the colours of the 212 th, he noticed, which meant that that man was under the orders of Marshall Commander Cody and General Obi Wan Kenobi, his studies on Kamino quickly supplied—and she was talking and bouncing happily in his arms. As for the _vod _, he held her with shaky hands. He was trying to smile, but it looked... wrong. Sad. Just like Yaddle’s words._

_Numa pulled back from the hug and looked up at the other trooper, who was standing closer to the door. But she mustn’t have been expecting the yellow hair, because she tilted her head in confusion and turned to look at the kneeling, bearded man._

_“Nerra?”, she asked._

_“Waxer...”, he started, swallowing the lump in his throat. “Waxer is gone, Numa.”_

_She blinked, trying to make head or tails of what he was saying._

_“Numa”, Yaddle called._

_And translated._

_“No”, she blurted out before the elder could finish her sentence. “No! Nerra, no!”, she turned to the kneeling man, as if to pleading him to say otherwise._

_“I’m sorry, Numa”, he sobbed, pressing his lips in an attempt to get them to stop trembling. “He’s not coming back...”_

_For a second, there was silence and the threat of Boil’s tears flooding._

_And then she wailed._

_She wailed and wailed, clutching the plushy she never left out of her sight closer and closer to her chest. And Boil embraced her, trying her best to comfort her, but he was crying too._

_Crys seemed to gather the courage to kneel down next to his comrade and place a hand on his shoulder in silent support._

_Aleluia felt sick. His brothers were crying and he was just watching. They weren’t supposed to cry on Kamino. But they weren’t on Kamino anymore. And a_ vod _had died. A_ vod _he never got to know._

_And now he was crying, too._

_Yaddle turned to the kitchen. When Aleluia realised that she meant to prepare some comforting drinks, he joined her. It was a good way of not intruding in the grieving while being somewhat helpful, he supposed. The Jedi Master gave him a grateful nod._

_They seated themselves around the table after Aleluia dragged a few more human sized chairs over. Numa was still pretty shaken and refused to let go of Boil, sitting on his lap and hugging his waist. At least the trooper seemed to be calmer as he accepted the offered drink._

_“And what’s your name,_ vod’ika _?”, Crys asked out of the blue._

_And the boy actually startled. It had been so long since he had been called that..._

_“Aleluia.”_

_“Ah. You are Dani’s kid, then”, Boil smiled weakly._

_He perked up._

_“You know my mom?”_

_“Yeah. We’ve worked together a few times. She told us about you”, his eyes darted away for a moment, lost in memories. “She loves you a lot, you know”, he added with a tender smile._

_He had needed that reminder for some time._

_They drank and passed the time until Numa calmed down, exhausted. There was another episode of desperate wailing when the troopers made to leave, but there was nothing that could be done about that._

_“Numa. Numa, you’ll be safe here; it’s alright”, Boil tried to comfort her over and over, not daring to promise that he would come back. “Hey,_ vod’ika _”, he called suddenly, and Ale practically snapped to attention. “You take care of her, yeah?”_

_It felt desperate. Broken, sad, almost hopeless. Like a dying wish._

_He really hoped it wasn’t a dying wish._

_“I will.”_

“And now I will return you your graded tests”, the teacher announced.

Aleluia fidgeted a bit in excitement on the cushion he was sitting on. He was very diligent in his studies, just as he had always been on Kamino. The change on subjects was... radical, to say the least, but very interesting nonetheless: either if it was learning to control the Force or just studying history or languages or science; he was eager to learn.

His graded test was sent to his terminal. His smile fell, a wave of despair so deep emanating from him that the classmates sitting around him shuddered.

“Uhm, Master...?”, a girl called meekly.

“Oh, dear”, Bant gasped softly, catching on on the situation. “Children, why don’t you take a brake?”, she said carefully.

The Initiates closer to Aleluia were fast on their feet, almost running out the door. Numa lagged, glancing at him over his shoulder, as if pondering if she should stay or go, but the Mon Calamari waved her away. The Jedi took a few steps closer to the boy.

Aleluia was sitting as rigid as a metal rod, but he gasped and leaned backwards when she approached. He suddenly seemed to remember that having physical reactions brought even _more_ trouble, and closed his eyes for a moment as he returned to his original posture, taking a deep, controlling breath.

“Aleluia”, Bant called him, kneeling beside him.

“I’m so sorry. It won’t happen again, I promise”, he spoke in a rush, looking at her through the corners of his eyes, facing forwards.

In a military posture.

“You are not in trouble, Aleluia”, the woman said slowly. “You have nothing to fear. You will not be harmed, or punished: not even scolded. Understood?”

He took a shaky breath, slowly daring to turn his head to her.

“But... but I failed...”

“And it’s alright”, she smiled soothingly, not attempting physical contact. “You are allowed to fail. To fail and try again, and again, and again; as many times as it takes you. You will not be discarded, you will not be deemed unworthy of anyone’s time.”

Bant paused, giving him a moment for her words to sink in. A part of her hurt at the thought of having to say that to a child. Everybody should have assumed the reassurances she was giving the poor boy but, Aleluia... Aleluia was a special case.

And for what she suspected, there were hundreds of thousands of cases like him, out of her reach.

“I know getting a low grade in a test can be very upsetting. I used to cry a lot when I got less score than what I thought I would get.”

“...Did you?”, he sniffled, quietly wiping his face with a sleeve.

“Yeah”, she smiled at him encouragingly. “But there’s no need to be afraid of failure. Failing helps us to learn from mistakes and get better at it. So, how about we go over your mistakes once class is over, hm? We’ll take our time: no rush.”

“I... Okay”, he nodded slowly, attempting a smile of his own.

“Alright then. Are you feeling well enough to go on with the class? Or would you rather go for a walk?”

Aleluia took a gasping breath, evaluating himself. Leaving seemed like it might grant great relief to the stress he was feeling, but in the long run he would probably feel guilty over skipping classes.

“I’m... I’m okay. I’ll stay.”

“Very well.”

 

He left the classroom way later than his classmates, but at least he was feeling a bit more at ease. It had been his first time failing an exam, and it had been...

 _Terrifying,_ a small voice admitted in the back of his mind.

But it was—It was _fine_. He had gone over his mistakes with Bant and now he knew better. He wouldn’t disappoint her again.

 

_Tik, their supervisor, ordered them to halt. They all did, but his heart wouldn’t. In fact, it was beating faster than ever. It was stupid, but Aleluia could almost swear he FELT Dani’s blood coursing through his veins, gathering in his heart and making it pump it with a power that wasn’t there before._

Two generals _, he realised._ Dani Luna, General of the 0th, and Jedi Master Plo Koon, General of the 104th, _his training provided._

_Plo Koon started examining his batchmates. Yeah, that was right: mom’s plan. Mom’s plan included General Koon as his ticket out of the GAR. Out of Kamino. It would work. He could feel whatever Jedis searched for inside him, it was RIGHT THERE! It would work. It would work._

_Plo’s hidden gaze fell on him. Ale held his breath, his posture flawless as he stared up._

_“I am afraid none of these cadets are Force-sensitive”, the General sighed. “Clones are not meant to be, anyways”, he added, and turned to leave._

_“Oh, well”, Dani shrugged. “We tried, kid.”_

_And turned to leave with him._

_And THEN, his heart seemed to stop, as he desperately tried to step out of formation and reach, scream for his mother._

Aleluia woke up with a strangled gasp, tears tickling down his cheeks as his eyes darted wildly around the room.

That—That was his room. His room in the Jedi Temple.

Mom’s plan had worked. Master Plo Koon had been very nice to him for the duration of the journey, and Commander Wolffe and the others troopers of the Wolfpack had seemed strangely wary around him; not as if they didn’t trust him, but as if they didn’t really know what to do of him. But with gentle nudges from their General and a bout of boldness from the Commander, they all had gathered around him to hear his story.

 _“Don’t go telling that around, vod’ika_ ”, Wolffe had warned. _“At least, not the part where you are sneaked out.”_

Of course not. He knew what would happen if he did.

Strangely, Aleluia had had the feeling that the Commander knew something he didn’t.

There were lots of things he didn’t know, anyway. He hadn’t completed his training.

He got up. Made his bed. Styled his hair. Had breakfast with Yaddle.

“Going to run later, would you like?”

“I can’t”, he replied, eyes on his plate. “I’m lagging behind in my studies, so I’ll be going to the library after class.”

“Hm. Then, before dinner?”

“Maybe”, Ale shrugged.

Yaddle did not press.

“May you have a nice day.”

“Thanks! You too!”

 

Once the class was over, Aleluia gathered his things and set off, heading directly for the library. He really... He didn’t really want to study anymore. The lessons today had been thick and tiring, but he was lagging, so he didn’t have a choice, right?

“Ale!”, a voice called, and a moment later Numa was trotting right behind him. “Hello, Ale!”

“Hello”, he replied, frowning at her. Didn’t she see he was busy?

“You want play?”

“I can’t, Numa. I have to study”, he shook his head and kept walking

“Oh... Want to lie on the grass?”

“No, Numa”, Aleluia repeated, quickly loosing his temper. “Don’t _you_ have to study?”

“Class over”, she shrugged.

“But that doesn’t mean you can’t study _more_!”

“Class over!”, Numa repeated, annoyed and exasperated in equal parts. “Now playtime!”

“I played long enough when I got here!”, Aleluia spat to her face, halting suddenly. “It’s _about time_ that I get to work! If you wanna go play: fine! But know that at some moment you will have to get to work too!”

The boy bolted and strode away.

Numa watched him go with wide eyes until he turned a corner. She hugged her plushy and screeched in frustration; dust raising from every spot on the vicinity and going to swirl around her in a grey tornado.

She made herself hush, and the dust floated delicately to the floor.

 

Aleluia rubbed at his eyes with his sleeve. It was getting harder to focus, despite the pleasant silence of the library.

Or what had been silence for him before. After so long in there, he was becoming hyperaware of the steps of those who wandered the halls; even the breathing of those who were closer.

He shook his head in an attempt to clear his mind and dove back into the texts.

He was on his fourth re-read of the same paragraph when a desperate sigh escaped his lips, and suddenly, the vacant chair next to his was carefully being dragged away. Ale jerked and looked up, ready to snap to whoever was about to interrupt him, but he recognised the elder woman and ducked his head, nervous at the thought that he had almost been rude to her.

Jocasta regarded him for a moment before offering a peaceful smile.

“Hello, youngling”, she spoke quietly: a whisper that was strangely clear. “What’s your name?”

“...Aleluia, ma’am”, he offered after a second of hesitation.

“Aleluia”, she nodded. “I have noticed that you’ve been here for a long time. Are you reading for pleasure, or studying?”

“Studying, ma’am.”

“There’s no need for—Oh, my, I think I completely forgot to introduce myself. I am Master Jocasta Nu”, she spoke, placing a hand over her chest slowly.

“The keeper of the archives”, Aleluia nodded. “I know.”

“You do your homework, I see”, the elder chuckled at her own joke. “Ah, yes, the reason I approached you for”, she seemed to get back on track, softly clearing her throat. “May I suggest you take a brake from your studying session, young Aleluia?”

The boy’s eyes darted from his datapads to the Jedi Master.

“W-Why...?”, he dared to ask, thinking he might be doing something wrong for her to ask him to leave. “Am I bothering somebody...?”

“Oh, no, no no no, my dear”, she assured him. “I merely noticed that you seemed tired, that’s all. Did you know that human brains have a limit on intake of information per day? There’s also a limit on how long you can keep focus on a task. It’s quite a short timespan, really”, she tilted her head with an amused smile. “Best way to solve it is to take a brake: go for a walk, set your eyes on something that isn’t a screen, or just read something for the pleasure of it...”, she offered.

“...And if I do that, I will be able to focus better later?”, he blinked up at her.

“On my experience: yes, that’s what I think will happen”, she nodded with a discreet smile.”

“...And if I go, is it safe if I leave my stuff here?”

“Absolutely. I take it’s the first time you leave belongings in the library?”

Aleluia nodded shyly.

“Then I will watch them for you, so you can take your brake without worries.”

“Oh. Thank you!”, he piped up, genuinely grateful.

Jocasta’s smile grew wider, but gave an apologising look as she pressed a finger against her lips.

“Thank you!”, Aleluia repeated, his tone hushed.

The Jedi Master waved him goodbye and he waved back, taking his leave.

Two sets of steps approached her, but Nu did not turn around.

“Go with him. See if you can get him to play.”

“Hm!”, was the enthusiastic reply, and the quick steps of a child running echoed faintly within the library.

“Numa! No running in the library!”, Bant tried to warn her with a hushed call.

“It’s alright”, Jocasta waved the worry away and invited her comrade to sit with a gesture.

“So”, the Mon Calamari sighed. “What’s your opinion?”

“He is pushing himself.”

“Yeah. That’s what Vokara and I think, too. Numa has been of great help, keeping an eye on him... But I’m not sure how we can help him, outside of reassuring him that he won’t be looked down upon if he fails.”

“We shall watch over him, regardless”, was Nu’s first answer, but then seemed to reflect a bit more. “Maybe he needs more action. Che mentioned he helped her a bit around the lab, correct?”

“Yes. Yes, I think so.”

“It would be logic that his sense of usefulness is strongly linked to physical actions with quick, if not immediate, results. If he is presented with larger quantities of theoretical studies than he is used to and with lessened periods of activity, that might be letting for pent up energy to turn into anxiousness and stress.”

“But he _is_ presented with the time to do physical activity.”

“But it is not presented as _mandatory_ , correct?”, Jocasta kept up, never raising her voice. “So a child that has always been under high expectations would use what is presented as _free time_ to work on what _is_ mandatory.”

Bant was silent for a moment, reflecting on Nu’s take.

“I guess he _is_ ready to start learning katas... And you have a point: stablishing physical activity as a routine might help him regain an stable part of his life on Kamino that wouldn’t damage his physique further... I hope...”

“It is decided, then”, Jocasta nodded curtly. “Who will be taking him under their wing?”

“I guess... Yaddle will”, Bant shrugged weakly. “She is already taking care of him most of the time. I’d say they already are pretty much Master and Padawan...”

“...I wouldn’t mind taking him as _my_ apprentice”, the elder muttered off-handedly.

“Well, get in line”, the other snorted. “Vokara has tried to call dibs on him too”, she made a pause, leaning to Nu’s ear. “Right after I did.”

 

_He didn’t know where he was, but it wasn’t Coruscant, nor Kamino: too many moons in the sky and dry soil under his boots. Aleluia looked down as his feet hit something protruding from the ground._

_A white armoured body lay at his feet._

_He jerked back, but his heel collided with something too, and when he turned around there was another corpse there. And there, and there: wherever he turned there were the lifeless husks of his_ vod’e _lying cold on the dusty floor._

_From afar, someone may have thought that it was a snowy landscape._

_Aleluia gulped loudly, trying to see something,_ anything _that wasn’t a corpse, when he noticed black lines spreading over the white armour of a body._

_He recognized Pedal._

_His heart clenched for his older brother before realization dawned on him and it just seemed to freeze completely._

_If Pedal was there, that meant it was the 0 th that lay around him._

_“MOM!!!”, he called into the expanse, twirling around desperately, “MOM???!!!!!”_

_He ran. He ran, watching grown up corpses of himself and feeling glad that each one of them weren’t his mother. The sea of dead seemed to be never ending, but frantic gaze finally fell on a darker spot on the soil. Aleluia’s steps faltered as he made his approach. He didn’t want to see it. He knew who he would find over there, and he didn’t want to see it; but he didn’t have anywhere else to go._

_“Mom...?”, he sobbed quietly as her pale face came into view: lifeless eyes staring up at the sky. “Mom...!”_

_Aleluia fell to his knees and wailed. He wailed, and wailed and wailed; his mother was dead, the person that had most ever cared about him was dead, dead,_ dead _—_

_A hooded form raised from the shadows among bodies, looming over the distraught child. A disgusting, wrinkled arm reached for the collapsed boy—_

_The starry sky suddenly crackled, and it was as if all the firmament became shooting stars. Not a quarter of a second later a silver-armoured fist collided with the figure’s jaw, sending it reeling far away from the kid._

_Next he knew, Aleluia was being picked up and carried away from Dani’s body._

_“No! No!”, he gasped, trying to kick, to fight, struggle—_

_“Shh, shh”, a mouth right by his ear shushed him. “It’s alright, Aleluia. You’re alright...”_

_He was repositioned so his arms were circling the neck of the person carrying him. Over their shoulder, he caught a glimpse of a swarm of_ VERY alive vod’e _closing on an objective, lead by a silver and blue Mandalorian and a lady with a slugthrower._

_And then it was as if they had crossed some kind of portal: a light wind bringing the smell of sea salt and the song of birds and the warmth of the sun above. He was eased down carefully, firm hands supporting his back and then his arms as he stumbled backwards to take a look at the person that had rescued him from that nightmare._

_“Hi”, said the woman with a tentative smile. Her dark eyes were breathtakingly warm, and for some reason Aleluia knew they were that way only for a handful of people. Her dark hair was gathered in a high pony tail, strands falling over her ears. She seemed familiar, but in a distant way._

_“Who... who are you?”, he asked with a shaky voice, still confused and in distress._

_“My name is Lian”, she introduced herself, her smile twitching into something wider for a split second. “Are you okay? Would you like to sit down?”_

_“M-My, my mom...”, he sobbed._

_“It’s okay, Ale; she is safe, you’re safe”, she reassured him, tenderly stroking his hair and cheeks._

_“I’m—I’m scared...”, he found herself confessing to that stranger._

_“Oh,_ ni... _”, Lian breathed, slowly pulling him into a hug so he could step back if he wanted to. He didn’t, instead sinking into her arms and going boneless. “I know, I know...”, she kept holding him, rocking him gently. “I know you have been having this nightmares for a while, and I’m sorry that we couldn’t help you sooner... But from now on you can sleep easy, okay? No more nightmares.”_

_He braced his hands on her shoulders, so Lian eased up so he could push away from her._

_“...No more?”, he asked hesitantly, almost afraid to let hope flourish in his eyes._

_“Not like this. Not so scary. I promise”, she whispered, gently guiding her grandson’s forehead into a Keldabe kiss._

_He nodded curtly, still sobbing but wanting to let her know that he was willing to believe her._

_“Mom...?”, he gasped, searching for an answer to his question into Lian’s eyes._

_“She is alright, I assure you”, she repeated patiently, cupping his cheek. Her reassuring smile curved up in mischievousness. “But you can check that by yourself, if you want. Time to greet a new day, Ale”._

_Her hand slid down his face, and contact was ultimately lost._

_Lian’s features hardened and she stood up, turning as her companions came back from their incursion._

_“So?”, she asked._

_“The coward fled before Aleluia awoke”, Shmi growled._

_The clones appeared steadily from behind her, talking in high spirits despite the apparent failure of their main objective._

_“Miss Luna, ma’am”, Waxer halted next to her and saluted with an amused smile. “Permission to repeat this operation as soon as possible, sir. It was VERY enjoyable”, he grinned, and some of the passing clones turned to grin too._

_“I don’t think our objective will show up again”, Jango sighed as he crossed his arms. “Sorry, Lian. We did our best.”_

_“Sorry? What are you sorry for? You helped me keep my grandson safe. I couldn’t ask for more.”_

_“Uh, well”, the Mandalorian stuttered, looking away for a second. “Your kid helped with my kid. I owed you.”_

_Both women and Waxer smiled tightly at his lame argument._

_“Aw, Fett doesn’t want to admit that we are his family now and he would help us no matter what”, Shmi teased._

_“Well, I would charge you a fee but it’s not like you have money or I have use for it!”_

_“Excuses, excuses”, Skywalker muttered without even trying to hide the smile in her voice, turning away and towards the beach._

_“Shmi! I—!”, he complained, stealing a glance at Lian and Waxer, who were covering their snickers with their hands but turned and started walking away when he looked at them._

Damn _, his reputation REALLY was in tatters..._

Aleluia woke up tired, but not exhausted. He had the feeling he had had another nightmare, but... something good had happened. For a moment all he wanted to do was lie back down and fall asleep again, sensing that this time he would get some real rest, but a sense of unease gripped his heart, anxiousness raising over his mom’s whereabouts. So he eased himself down into a prone position, but not to sleep.

He closed his eyes, took a deep intake of air and thought of his mother.

_It was night at the campsite. The place was mostly quiet, at exception of the patrols and the small group gathered around a fire. Aleluia approached the laughter from the group, and breathed out a sigh of relief._

_Dani was standing next to Laa’ka, sporting dark bags under her eyes but seeming happy as she tried to teach the ARC some dance moves. Sitting down near them and watching the show were Raven, Dogma and Venus. Shades was there too, but he had fallen asleep on Raven’s lap and not even the quiet claps the spectators offered every now and then roused him_

_“—o, listen, LISTEN: it’s not about copying the move, it’s about COORDINATION, see?”, she tried to explain and demonstrating, “It looks nice because I coordinate arm and knee, see?”, she pointed out, repeating the gesture. “No matter what or how you move: as long as it coordinates with another part of your body it will look nice!”_

_“Okay, okay, I think I get it!”_

_“Shh”, Dogma hushed softly, and they both dipped their heads in silent apology, but continued with their stuff._

_Aleluia watched them for a while, laughing quietly at their antics. At one point Laa’ka and Dani tripped with each other and fell in a tangle of limb, and Ale couldn’t help but laugh louder._

_Dani stilled for a moment._

_“Uh, you alright?”, the ARC asked, worried that she might be hurt._

_“Ah, yeah”, she replied, blinking out of her stupor. “Just... suddenly thought of Aleluia. I should call him. We haven’t talked in a while...”_

He opened his eyes back in his room and sat up. Mom had never noticed him before...

He shook the feeling, finally at ease knowing that Dani was alright and she still thought about him. She still cared. He sighed in relief and swung his legs off the bed. His left foot stepped on something fluffy, tearing a yelp from the boy. He leaned over to discover that he was squishing his vulptex.

“Aw, sorry, Beskar”, he apologised, picking up the toy.

He stared at it for a long moment, lips quirking in a grimace. He... he had been very rude to Numa for doing things that he himself did.

He ought to fix that.

Aleluia dressed up and picked up Beskar again before trotting to the awaiting breakfast.

“Good morning, Yaddle.”

“To you too a good morning, Ale”, the elder nodded with a smile. “For breakfast, what would you like?”, she asked, gesturing to the dished she had made for him.

“I... won’t be having breakfast here today.”

“Hm?”, Yaddle inquired, trying to hide her worry.

“I have been rude to Numa and I have to apologise”, he elaborated with a grimace of guilt, clutching Beskar against his chest.

“Ah, I see”, she exhaled, relieved. “Go then”, she ushered him with a smile.

Aleluia smiled and turned to the door, but hesitated for a long moment before walking to her and stared at the woman with big eyes until she turned completely to him.

“I—“, he started, but shook his head and started anew. “Thank you very much for everything you do for me, grandma Yaddle. I love you very much”, and before she could react, he threw his arms around her and hugged her tight.

Yaddle exhaled slowly, all worries finally released into the Force as she hugged her grandson back.

“Love you too, I do. _Never_ forget that.”

“I won’t”, Ale promised, taking a step back and offering one of his most radiant smiles. “Would you like to go for a walk later? Maybe after lunch?”

“Love to, I would”, she smiled back.

“Cool. See you later!”, he waved with his free hand, and made a dash for the door. “Oh, before I forget!”, he perked up, turning to the elder once more from the doorframe, “Mom might call soon! Let me know when she does, please!”

And with that, he was gone.

Yaddle blinked at the closed door, dumbfounded.

 

The door to Che’s lab swished open.

“Oh, Aleluia! Good morning!”

“Good morning, Master Vokara”, he replied politely.

“Coming for some fruits? Come in, come in.”

“Yes. I have to apologise to a friend, and I was thinking of giving some to her. She likes them. I think...”

“That’s very thoughtful of you”, Che smiled. “You know your way around here, then.”

“Is... there something I shouldn’t touch?”, he asked cautiously.

“Nothing dangerous has ben out for a couple of days, but, as always: try to avoid touching anything if you don’t know what it is.”

“Understood”, the kid nodded, and made his way to the greenhouse.

He took a long while to decide which fruit he should get for Numa, but finally he decided on a ripe apple. Before leaving, thought, he picked a few strawberries too, and trotted up with them to the Twi’lek.

“Here, Master Vokara”, he said shyly, pushing the small basket to her. “In thanks.”

“Oh. Thank you very much”, she smiled, and immediately ate a berry. “Say, Aleluia”, she spoke, still chewing on the fruit. “Would you like to help me around the lab more often?”

He blinked up at her.

“Could I?”

“Sure! You are already very cautious when in the lab, and that’s already the most important part! For whatever else we would do, I just would have to explain the basics and how to operate some test machines; but I love explaining so I would gladly do it. Of course, you don’t have to if you don’t want to or if you don’t want to come every day, only if you feel like it or—”

“I would love to!”, he interrupted her, and seemed to catch himself too late, but instead of hushing or dipping his head, he repeated: “I would love to, Master Che.”

“Alright, then!”, Vokara clapped her hands, pleased. “Now go apologise to your friend. We’ll specify the schedules when you have time, alright?”

“Alright!”, Aleluia beamed, taking some steps towards the door. “Thank you very much!”

“You’re welcome! And remember to talk about this with Yaddle!”. The Chief Healer called after him.

 

“Numa!”, he called.

The girl immediately turned, surprise clear in her expression, but she beamed to him nonetheless.

Aleluia came to a stop right by her, and he looked away in shame for a moment before steeling himself.

“I... have been very rude to you lately, and I’m very sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. You just were trying to help me and I... I was a dumbass...”

Numa giggled.

“I... brought you an apple. As an apology”, he added, handing it to her.

“Ah! Thanks!”, she said with an appreciative smile, and took a bite before offering it to him.

Aleluia eyed the fruit for a moment, but accepted the offering.

“I was thinking, since today there’s no class, that we could... play?”, he said, taking his plushy from behind his back.

Numa cooed at it.

“Awwww! What’s its name?”

“Beskar”, he supplied shyly, and realised something. “What’s its name?”, he asked, pointing at her tooka plushy.

She took her toy with both hands and stared lovingly at it for a long moment before turning it around to show it to Aleluia in all its glory:

“Waxer!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every female Jedi on the Jedi Temple: I have only known Aleluia for 0.00002 seconds, but if anything were to happen to him I would commit Order 66 myself
> 
> I was gonna add like the other Initiates had it on him because he has a mom and Ale feels lonely because he barely has vod'e around but like... I decided to dial down the angst
> 
> I also decided that Waxer deserved grieving and the plushy thing... I mean, why not? I think it's a good thing to remember him by
> 
> Drawing by @cal-sparrow!!!


	43. Keeli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ghost Keeli

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter than usually, one-shotish

“—and it had, like, some sort of yellow fungus over its bark; probably a lichen, now that I think of it—”

“Wait, wait, I’m still not done with the leafs! How were the leafs again?”, Feather tried to keep up with Dani’s description of a small tree she had found as he sketched it.

“Oh, yeah, the leafs: spear alike. A bit rounder. Not so much. Yeah, like that!”, she checked her friend’s progress over her shoulder before turning hastily towards the pot she was stirring.

“Are you COOKING?!”, came Match’s voice as he strode into the lounge room. “What are you cooking?! Dibs on a spoonful!”, he added hastily.

Ducky did cook every now and then, but it was virtually impossible that she could cook for the whole 0th, so only the firsts to find her when she was at it got to taste it.

“Alright, alright: I’m hoping this is a close enough replica of _sinigang_.”

“ _Talk to me_ ”, the trooper spoke dramatically, clinging to her shoulders from behind her and peeking into the pot.

“Well, it’s a stew from my homeland, the Philippines. It’s supposed to be a bit sour, but since the original ingredients are not available I have had to make approximations, so I’m not sure of how it will turn out...”

“Better than nutrient paste, that’s for sure.”

“Damn, Feather: that’s not hard to achieve!”, she snickered.

“Philip-vines”, Bubble pronounced slowly. “I thought your planet was the word for ‘ground’? Very original”, he added with a smirk, and Dani elbowed him, making him yelp and double over.

“Very funny”, she commented, unamused. “My planet’s lands are divided in countries. Different countries usually have different cultures or languages.”

“Ah, I see. How’s your land, then? Big?”, Bubble asked, already straightening.

“Well, no but yes. It has more than 7.000 islands.”

The chair were Feather was seated screeched horribly on the durasteel floor. When Dani turned to arch an eyebrow at him they were both staring with jaws slack.

“...I mean, yeah: it’s a lot of islands, but the continents are still bigger”, she added with a shrug, because she had _no clue_ how they were envisioning Terra right now.

Keeli watched his _vod’e_ assault her with questions with an amused smile, basking in the warmth of that domestic moment.

Soon, though, that warmth seeped away when it became evident that he wasn’t a part of it.

But he couldn’t really complain, could he? He was dead. Like so many of his brothers. His eyes wandered back to Dani. ‘Ducky’, as Lian called her so often, with infinite affection in her voice and eyes.

Dani Luna. Daughter to an earthling and a clone.

He couldn’t help but to think that he would have loved to meet her in life. To gain her trust, to be let in in her secret enterprise and efforts to save her uncles. To fight for himself and his people, and not the Republic. Ima-Gun Di would have been right there with him: he had no doubt about that.

The memory of his General made him squish his eyes shut for a moment. He had been desolated to find out that his friend wasn’t on The Shore with them. Nor Lian nor Shmi had been able to give him an explanation for that: together they theorized that maybe Jedi went somewhere else when they died, but... It hurt. Even if the Kajain’sa’Nikto was just in another afterlife, the separation hurt.

He hoped Di wasn’t alone, wherever he was.

Keeli exhaled slowly and opened his eyes again. His niece was trying to protect the dish from Bubble’s playful attempts at getting a taste of it. The Captain watched, and _yearned_ , a traitorous thought cruelly stabbing his mind:

_I would have liked to have a daughter too..._

He scoffed bitterly at the thought and faded from the room, shaking his head. He was never going to get to have kids. He was _dead_.

Keeli opened his eyes to find himself in the canyon were he had died. He guessed it was true, then, than ghosts usually hunted places. He had been drawn there more often than not his firsts days of being dead, just like a lot of men from his Company. They had watched as their bodies were scavenged. Guess the Republic didn’t have time to stop and take care of their remains. Perhaps it was better this way. This way, there would be proof that they had existed.

Lian had been worried that they weren’t moving on, but there wasn’t much she could do in that case.

That had been until they had come.

Some Twi’leks came back. The dead clones had shifted in unease, thinking they were probably going to strip the armour from their bodies. And who could blame them? It’s not like they needed them anymore...

And then they started rolling their corpses in comfortable positions. They crossed their arms over their chests.

They started _digging_.

Keeli had watched as a teenage girl clutched his long-cold hand and wept.

He—He knew that girl. He had held her in his arms and offered her a ration bar in a moment of respite between battles. It had been painful to see someone so young in such a devastated place. That why... That’s what he used to fight for. So people could be safe and live in peace. And the child: her eyes seemed to _shine_ as she looked up at him.

_“Ifih”, she had said, patting her chest._

_Keeli had tilted his head in confusion, unable to recall the meaning of that particular word._

_“I think she is introducing herself, Captain”, Di had leaned towards him, amusement clear in his voice._

_“Oh”, he had perked up. “Keeli”, he had said, patting his own chest._

Her smile ( _how was she able to smile? In this situation, in this misery, at such a young age...?_ ) had grown wider as she dared raise her arms towards him.

It had been automatic. He didn’t even think about it. He had done it before with cadets, and before he could realize that _that’s a civilian, not a vod’e_ , she was perched in his arms and smiling _wider_. What was left to do, but smile back?

The girl had hung around them for as long as she had been allowed, before the evacuation began.

And she came back, and mourned his death: cried and helped dig his grave, clung to her people as his body was lowered in the hole and slowly covered. Ifih had been the one to place his helmet over the vertical stick marking his grave.

And for that, he was grateful. And for that, he felt at peace.

That peace only grew and grew as more of his brothers were carefully buried. Nowadays, most of the 64th didn’t come here anymore.

But there he was: staring at his own helmet under the stars. He himself hadn’t come here in a lot of time. So why...?

Just as the question formed in his mind, he heard quiet steps coming from behind. Keeli bolted. If he had been alive, his breath would have caught in his throat; but he had to settle for blinking in surprise and a quiet gasp.

Ifih walked past him. She was wearing a heavy cloak, but the cloth wasn’t able to hide that she had grown.

 _Good_ , Keeli thought, _That means she is eating_

The girl stood still in the night for a long moment, as if she was steeling herself for something.

“Hello, Keeli”, she spoke softly.

Keeli perked up, a small spark of hope lighting up at the thought that _maybe_ she could _see_ him, maybe she could _sense_ him, maybe he could finally communicate with he leaving and make a difference...!

He walked into her line of sight, but she didn’t react. She was just talking to his grave, then. The thought wasn’t even over that he felt ashamed of it. It was more than most of his brothers were ever going to get. He should be grateful that there was someone who cared enough to come and visit—

“We’ve been alright. Or, as alright as we can be”, she chuckled nervously. “But we alive, and as long as we live there’s hope, and... And we owe that to you!”, she spoke with conviction, but lowered her head in sorrow. “So don’t you think that we’ll be forgetting.”

Keeli just watched. Replying wouldn’t do any good, anyways.

“I... I knew what you were doing, you know?”, she went on quietly. “I knew you were going to die so we didn’t. And for a while: I couldn’t understand! I couldn’t understand at all! Why would you do that for strangers? Because you were ordered? But...! You were all so gentle...! So sweet...! And you could have lived, you could have left us behind, but you didn’t...!”, she sobbed, and swept a hand over her face to interrupt the stream of tears. “But I think... I think I understand now”, she sniffed, and looked up at the starry sky. “The _love_ you have to feel to chose to give your life over another... Is immeasurable”, Ifih exhaled, and looked down at his grave again. “I had never been loved that way. I may never be loved this way again. And for that, I vow to never forget the love you gave to me, and to my people”, she unclipped her cloak and let it slip to the floor.

 _What are you doing_ , Keeli distantly thought as he shook himself out of the haze Ifih’s words had lulled him into, _You’re going to catch a cold you—_

His train of thought completely derailed as she turned her back to his grave and took off her shirt.

Again, if he had been alive, his breath would have caught in his throat.

He found himself staring at a perfect replica of the horns that had been drawn on his helmet; now tattooed over Ifih’s shoulder plates.

“I’ll carry you with me, Keeli”, she spoke to the stars.

He was glad that she couldn’t see his ugly crying.

Maybe, after all; he had a daughter of his own.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter inspired by @rebekah's-art breathtaking art of Captain Keeli and a Twi'lek girl with his horns tattooed on her back on Tumblr


	44. Loyalty Is A Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...A Choice That Defines You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, adopting another canon clone that got left behind

Dani huffed angrily under her helmet.

She was glad that the tension was already high due to the heavy fire they were under, because otherwise she would be intimidating the people around her with the bad mood she was projecting.

Reduced to a radar! That was what was being asked of her! She couldn’t understand how the GAR had surrendered her to a stupid petition from a stupid Jedi that had made the stupid Jedi Council call her just to load her in a larty without her men just so she could point were the enemy was hidden from the ship!

So there she was: doing exactly that because it was the only thing she could do being airborne and too high to jump safely. She was _fuming_ and decided to take out her own rifle and shoot a bit: it might have been futile battle-wise, but at least it would be therapeutic.

And what was the stupid Jedi doing anyways?! Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Just standing there with his stupid green lightsaber! He sure as hell wasn’t a mind reader because if he were he would be _writhing_ at her internal screams!

It was all so _pointless_ and _STUPID!!!!!_

A pained scream teared her away from her spiral of justified anger and she gasped, watching the a shattered helmet collapse around what had been their main gunner in the hold. Ducky held her breath, expecting at any moment for his life to fade away.

But it didn’t.

She turned to track him as he took an unsteady step backwards. His face was bloodied, but his life-Force was holding strong—It was a superficial wound. He would be alright—

And then, the larty tilted, throwing him off-balance.

Dani gasped again, body going tight as she sprung forwards from her crouched position. She took a hold of his wrist and tried to plant her feet on the slick metal of the ship, but the angle wasn’t right: she couldn’t make enough fraction to throw her weight backwards and overthrow him...!

As her feet left the surface, everything seemed to slow down.

Curiously, his injured eye was wide open. It stared at her for what felt like an eternity before it looked down at were she was gripping his wrist. She sensed his attempt to dislodge himself before he tried to wriggle his hand free.

He was... He was trying not to drag her down with him.

As their fall progressed, she got a very good view of the rocky terrain where they were about to fall. Damn, she was so _not_ looking forward to getting there...

She squished his wrist, sending him the feeling of _shrug/resignation/brace yourself_. She was glad she had her helmet on so he couldn’t see her _I regret my life decisions_ face. I mean; she wasn’t regretting this one in particular, so it would be unfair that he thought that her expression was his fault.

They fell further, still linked by their arms. The clone was back at staring at her. He must have realized that there was no point in trying to make her let go anymore, because he gripped her wrist back.

_And pulled._

Dani found herself hitting his chest in mid-air, and suddenly his arms were wrapped around her back, securing her there.

 _Oh my god I’m going to fall ON him!_ , she realized with a shrill of horror as her eyes drifted again to the approaching ground.

_Something something something something something to do SOMETHING!!! Cloak?! NO!!! Sparkles?! NO!!! Healing?! HEALING WHAT?! Heal heal heal protect protect protect—SHIELD!!!!_

And they collided against the Force-shield she had created right below him. She hit his chest, knocking the air out of him, but her helmeted head ricocheted from his chest plate and the act dizzied her enough that she couldn’t maintain the barrier, and they were falling again.

Next time, they _did_ hit the ground.

 

Dani jerked awake, sore all over. There was something moving right next to her and she tried to roll away before she managed to link _white armour_ with _clone_ and _ally/friend/uncle_. She still rolled onto her back, frowning at her darkened view of the sky, and slowly worked her aching arms into easing her helmet off her head. She coughed at the dusty air and tried flexing her legs. Those hurt, too, but not more than her left arm and she had still managed to move it with sheer force of will and at a cost of a bunch of pitiful whines of pain.

At least—At least her head was fine. Yeah, Thread would have been proud...

“You... okay?”, she croaked, turning to the clone lying beside her, who was gritting his teeth as if he wanted his jaw to crack and eyes screwed shut in a grimace of intense pain.

“Hey, hey”, she called, raising herself on her good elbow and awkwardly patting his back. “It’s okay, let it out. Let it out”, she coaxed him, and as soon as she had said it a low whine escaped his lips; and it grew into a moan and a groan and a pained scream. “Breathe. Breathe”, she said for him and for herself as she rested her injured arm over his shoulders and inhaled deeply, cataloguing and willing her own pain down. “We’re gonna take it easy, yeah? We can rest a bit. What’s your name?”

“CT... 553...9...”, he replied between gasping breaths.

“Okay”, she conceded, deciding it was not the moment to talk about choosing names. “I’m Dani. And I’m _so sorry_ that I fell on you...!”

Her almost hysteric tone managed to steal a barked laugh from him.

“You f-fell because... of me... ‘Was the least I could do...”, his shoulders shook in what she hoped was also a laugh.

At the mention of the fall, she looked up at the sky. Maybe the larty they were on would be already coming down—

A loud boom prompted them to curl on on themselves. They tried to cover each other and ended up tangled up in an awkward hug. They both rolled away rather than to address that, just in time to see the ball of fire disappearing in the sky.

“Was that... Was that the larty we were in...?”

“I... I think so...”

“Ha!”, Dani barked. “Lucky us...”

She slowly worked herself into a sitting position, testing her limbs again. Her legs seemed fine so far: just bumped up. There was something _wrong_ with her left elbow, but her right arm seemed well enough. With herself settled, she turned to her companion.

“What hurts?”, she asked, dragging herself closer to him.

“Legs...”, he breathed out, “Left arm and... face...”

“Alright... my legs are well enough”, she offered, slowly raising to her feet. Her knees wobbled for a long moment, but she managed to stay upright. “Can you walk?”

“I’ll... I will manage, sir”, 39 said, slowly pulling himself up. It was obvious that putting weight on his legs was causing him a great deal of pain, but he gritted his teeth, stubbornly dealing with it. Dani just sighed and jammed her helmet on, moving to offer him support, since the best she could offer him was to try and drag him along as she went.

“Let’s find ourselves a better place to rest.”

 

Together they scavenged a few branches— _where had those come from??? She had no idea: there were no trees around...—_ along the way to a an elevated ledge. They were both panting hard by the time they got there, so Dani did her best to ease the trooper against the rocky wall before going down with him and just lying there for a minute. Or ten.

Eventually, they went on with the next step: removing each other’s armour and treating wounds.

“I am SO SORRY that I landed on you...”, Ducky muttered yet again, mortified.

“ _I_ am sorry that I made you fall”, he scoffed in the same demeanour as he splinted her elbow.

“Well, that wasn’t your fault”, she tried. “It was my footing that failed.”

“Then it wasn’t your fault that you fell on top of my either”, he huffed as they set to make inventory. They stayed in silence for a while as he emptied his belt’s pouches and she unloaded what she had in her pants’ pockets. “Did we...? Did we hit the ground _twice_ , or was it an hallucination?”

“Ah, I managed to create a Force-barrier so we wouldn’t... You know: get squished against the rocks. Took me longer than desired to do it”, she shrugged, uncapping the small water back she carried and taking an even smaller sip before offering it to him. “How’s your eye?”

“Stings”, he said before taking a sip. “But not too bad. Why? How does it look?”

“Bloody. But that’s about it. Your eye seems fine. Can you see well out of it?”

“A little blurry at the moment”, and 39 blinked at her, as if proving that he was attempting to clear his vision.

“Hm”, she hummed, eyes drifting to the stuff displayed between them: her switchblade, two small water packs, three ration bars, some rope, their discarded armour... Not much more. They had already used up the emergency bandages they both carried. Surprise, surprise: her phone didn’t have signal without the proximity of a trooper with antenna to boost it. She turned to the dry expanse behind her and made a Force-sweep. There were spots of small fauna here and there. She turned to him, meaning to discuss the possibility of hunting, but the man seemed to have fallen asleep against the rock wall. He was going to have awful kinks in his neck when he woke up, no doubt.

But still, Dani decided against touching him. She turned her back at him, feet dangling over the edge.

 

He woke up sometime later with a gasp.

“You okay?”, she asked over her shoulder.

“Fine”, he breathed, pushing himself up. “How long...?”

“Five Earth hours, if that means something to you.”

“...Not really.”

“Yeah, I figured”, Ducky shrugged, checking the time yet again on her phone. “Usually humans are required to sleep eight Earth hours, at least. So you get three hours more if you want them.”

“No, you—You rest now. Your turn”, he refuted, slowly moving to her position.

Unlike her, his legs were compromised. Probably cracked, not entirely fractured if he was lucky.

“Alright”, she conceded, because yeah: she would be grateful for the chance of lying down. “I think a storm might be coming”, she added, noticing a gust of wind blowing by. “Will you collect water if it rains?”

“Sure”, he nodded.

“Cool. Cool”, she yawned, moving to the spot the trooper had been occupying. “If you take care of the water I’ll take care of hunting something down”, she proposed, lying down and rolling to her side. “Don’t think it will be too long until somebody comes looking for us, but better be safe than sorry”, she sighed.

She was sinking into blissful sleep when 39 spoke up in a hushed whisper.

“...You sure they are going to find us?”

“Sure”, she replied plainly, a bit annoyed. So much for being her turn to sleep...

“I mean, I’m not doubting that they are going to search for _you_. You are a General. But... our gunship was destroyed. There’s no way to—”

“The remains of the gunship itself”, she supplied, because even if it was blown to pieces the metal shards would still be visible, and Shiver surely could put together a program to figure out were the explosion had taken place. Plus, Laa’ka would personally comb the whole planet to find her if it were up to him.

“...Maybe they think everyone died—”

“Wow, someone is being very pessimist right now!”, she spat, opening her eyes in annoyance, and immediately regretted it. “Sorry”, she sighed, rubbing at her tired eyes. “I know this sucks, but we will be alright, okay? My men will come looking for us, and if they don’t we’ll just do whatever needs to be done, alright?”

“Yes, sir”, he replied lowly. “Sorry, sir.”

“It’s fine”, she replied quietly, and finally fell asleep.

 

It did rain. They gathered water with their packs and their knee protectors and anything that could contain water; because you never know. As soon as the rain stopped, she headed out, figuring that most animals would be out searching for the precious resource.

Dani only managed to catch a few lizards: making her approach cloaked and dropping to her knees to stab them with her good hand. She checked their teeth and claws and throats, finding nothing to indicate that they could inject or spit poison. They were going to have to take risks, she supposed. She wondered what they might taste like, but she guessed it wouldn’t be much different than chicken: since birds are feathered lizards, evolutionary speaking.

When the sun started stinging on her skin, she made her way back to the ledge. 39 received her with interest, having already managed to start a small fire near the entrance of their hideout.

They ate a little bit and settled to wait, hoping that nothing would happen.

And nothing happened, at least not that could be linked to food poisoning. When the evening air grew colder, 39 started trembling. Dani helped him curl up against the rocky wall and untangled the thin jacket that she wore tied to her waist to cover him with. Her hand mindlessly went to caress his hair, but she froze, fingers hovering right above his head.

It was a good thing he had his eyes closed. He didn’t need to see the face of pure horror that had crossed her features.

Dani stumbled to the edge of the ledge and threw up.

 _I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him_ , ran through her head over and over, panic attack peaking and bringing a most unpleasant tachycardia with it. Still, it was that physical discomfort that anchored her and guided her to put herself together again: there was no real danger, the hurt was mental, emotional; not physical. There was no real reason for needing her heart to beat faster.

The clone lying behind her was CT-5539, not Thread. Thread had suffered a head injury. 39 hadn’t.

Somehow.

She wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. She was going to do her _damn_ best to help who she could help.

Dani still took a couple minutes more to breath in the cold air of the night before retreating to tend the fire and back to the clone. This time, carefully, oh so carefully, she lifted his head up and rested it on her lap; her own legs stretched out, and carefully held him.

 

“Drink some more.”

The clone refused at first.

“Come on, it’ll make you feel better, I promise.”

And with that, he accepted the water. A hand swept some sweat away, carefully avoiding the still-healing wound over his right brow, eye and cheek. Instead of falling asleep again, he blinked up at her.

“Why...?”

Dani waited a few seconds for him to continue, but he just kept staring at her.

“Why what?”

“Why did you...? Reach for me...?”

It was her turn to blink at him.

“You... were falling”, she half-shrugged. “I wanted to help.”

He shook his head. “Stupid...”

“Hey...”, she whined in offense, but she was oppressing a snicker. Regardless, he seemed to pay her no mind.

“We’re just... Pieces in the machine—“, at that Ducky already wanted to interrupt, but he made to go on, so she decided to wait. “—all equally important... which means... not important... at all...”

Her good hand carefully glided from his hair to the neck of his blacks and she pinched the fabric, lifting it so the air of the night would cool the skin of his chest a bit as she muddled over her answer.

“Not important to who?”

He frowned at that, seeming to be thinking about it, but perhaps the question was too general for his fevered mind.

“You say you are pieces”, she went on, still scrambling to come up with something. Her eyes drifted to what had been her main entertainment: the breathtakingly clear sky. ”But I think you are more... like stars!”, it finally clicked, and she turned to look down at him with a satisfied smile on her face. “You clones are like stars! From afar, they all look the same; but if you take your time to get to know them, you soon learn that they are all unique!”

5539 just blinked up at her. It was not the reaction she had been expecting... Maybe she had been hoping to make him smile. Or at least steal a snort. Her smile eventually fell, and his eyes tracked it as a his frown grew, perhaps distantly realising that he must have done something wrong.

“You _are_ important”, she added, just to reassure him. “It’s not your fault that some people can’t see that you are a universe of your own.”

 

He woke up feeling better, but still groaned at the raising temperature of the morning.

“Hi, Hock”, Dani’s voice greeted him from the edge of their hideout.

“Hey”, he reacted before he even processed that she had referred to him. “Hock?”, he asked, sitting up and giving her a confused look.

She titled her head.

“We had... a few conversations last night. In one of them you told me you wanted to be called Hock? You even wrote it over there”, she pointed at the wall and, truly, written in Aubresh, the word HOCK could be read. “But if you want to backtrack on that, that’s fine”, she added hastily.

He took a moment to narrow his eyes at the writing.

“No. It’s... It’s fine”, he decided. “And you say I chose it?”, he turned to her, eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, I can’t remember exactly how the conversation went, but yes.”

“Hm”, he turned again towards the name. “Hock.”

 

Hock was cooking a couple lizards when Ducky suddenly went rigid, a wide smile spread on her face as she bolted around and back to the edge.

“Genera—?”

“LAA’KAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!! RAVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!!!!!!!!”, her voice was surprisingly loud, so much that he startled and blinked in shock, not at all expecting that power to reside in her throat. Even greater was the effect when it bounced between the canyon walls, echoing.

“DANIIIIIIIIIII????!!!!!!”, came the shouted reply.

“UP HEREEEEEEEE!!!!!!”, she called again, and fished her phone from the pocket she had stored it in, already calling their comms and bringing the device to her ear.

“Dani!!!”, Laa’ka picked up immediately, obviously relieved.

“I _sense_ you!!!”, she said playfully. “Getting warmer!!!”

“Is that literal or the guiding game?”, Raven joined the chat.

“Injuries, General?”, Shades spoke before she could decide on her reply. And, per previous accord, she had to reply first to the medic.

“Some cracked bones, I think; and Hock has a slash on his face that is still healing.”

“You’re not alone?”

“No.”

“Well, huh, good to know. Hey there, brother.”

“Shades says hi”, she passed on the message.

“Huh, hi”, Hock awkwardly waved, but that earned him a grin from Dani.

“We’ve got a lock on your signal, sir. We’ll double time it and be there in thirty, tops”, Raven piped up.

“We’ll be waiting. And keep your eyes high”, she added before hanging up. “See?”, she smirked, turning to her companion. “Told you they would come looking.”

He huffed in reply, and they both settled to wait.

 

Dani was released from the medbay a bit earlier than Hock, and was almost immediately whiskered away by her CO companions.

“High Command totally wanted us to call it a day and head to Coruscant—“, Dogma was explaining.

“—Saying some bullshit about Yaddle being our new General or something?”, Ian piped up, leaning a bit towards her in what was an uneasy demand for answers.

“—and _then_ we had a call from Master Yaddle, who told us that Aleluia told her that you were on the surface on some sort of ledge; which still didn’t help much with the search, but at least we knew were we _shouldn’t_ look... What _did_ help was Shiver’s recreation of were the larty was hovering before it exploded. We should consider promoting him, sir”, Dogma finished reporting, and then narrowed his eyes in thought before straightening. “Sorry, sir. That was a poorly professional sitrep of me, sir.”

“In my humble opinion I think it made for a great summary. But I’m sure your written report will be as impeccable as always”, she encouraged him with a friendly smile.

The Captain returned a nod and the faintest trace of a sincere smile.

“Dani!”, Ian insisted.

“Okay, okay”, she gestured for him to back off a bit and took a deep breath. “It is planned that if I were to die Yaddle would replace me as General of the 0th.”

Dogma and Ian stopped dead on their tracks, staring at her in shocked silence.

“What?”, she shrugged, a bit on the defensive. “Would you rather be assigned some random guy than a woman that cottons to most of my ideals?”

She locked eyes with both of them, but held Ian’s gaze for a bit longer. His eyes were hurt in understanding:

Under Yaddle’s orders, he would be able to carry on with the smuggling operation. The old Jedi would cover for him if Dani couldn’t. If Dani were dead.

Ian _hated_ thinking about that, but the most practical part of him reminded him that it was a VERY real possibility.

“...Guys?”, Ducky prompted, because the silence was stretching too much.

Dogma was the first to snap out of it.

“Sir, sorry sir. That was... unexpected”, he admitted, scratching the back of his head with a meekly expression.

“Ian?”, she asked, since the Commander was still staring at her.

 _This is unfair!_ , he wanted to shout: _How dare you plan about your hypothetical death?! How dare you have a replacement ready?! How dare you—_

Ian took a deep breath.

“It won’t come to that, sir. You won’t need a replacement”, he assured, his posture way more rigid that what she was used to see him in.

“...Doesn’t hurt to plan ahead”, she shrugged, and tentatively resumed the march. Her steps gained confidence when they fell in step with her. She was just glad that they were over that uncomfortable moment... Her features scrunched up in deep thought and realization. “Wait”, she blurted out, turning to Dogma. “Did you just said that Aleluia told Yaddle where I was?”

 

Hock blinked tiredly as Shades finished his check-up.

“Seems to me like you could have overcome your fever, even without intervention. Not that we aren’t going to give you treatment”, the medic commented.

“Huh”, he said, very eloquently.

It was nice to think that he wouldn’t have died even if they hadn’t been found... He distantly wondered what would have happened then. Or what would have happened to him if he had fallen alone.

“Hey”, Shades said, grasping his arm lightly.

Hock jerked in surprise and blinked at him, thinking that perhaps he hadn’t heard a question.

“I just wanted to... thank you for being there with Dani. She always has a really bad time when she is alone”, he said, sincerely.

“Ha!”, he laughed dryly, letting his head fall against the pillow. “I didn’t—She fell _after_ me! She literally fell because she tried to save me!”

“And you both lived. Thank you”, such was the feeling after Shades’ words that Hock could only open and close his mouth. “Thought I _will_ have a conversation with her about risks and whatnots”, he added in a grumble. “But still: I’m just glad you’re both okay.”

“I...”, he started, maybe trying to downplay the issue, or refuse the attempt at thanking him... After all: he hadn’t done anything because he wanted to, but because he _had_ to... He hadn’t really had a choice. But there was something in the CMO demeanour, and Hock’s mind managed to scavenge something from when he had been sick: _not pieces of a machine, but stars_. That’s... That’s what talking to Shades was feeling right now: like slowly discovering a star.

And he might as well be kind to a star that was thanking him.

“It was nothing”, he finally settled on saying. “She kept me company, too.”

Then someone knocked on the medbay door. Shades already knew who it was: only one person aboard the ship knocked on the medbay.

“Nothing obscene to see!”, he called to the door.

“Cool”, Dani said as it opened, holding a covered plate in her hands as she stepped inside. “Hi!”, she greeted Hock.

“General”, he nodded respectfully.

“How are you feeling?”

“Better”, he smiled briefly.

“Good”, she smiled for longer, stepping towards him. “I brought you some _sinigang._ If you are hungry. Hot soup for the soul”, she added in an afterthought, and offered it to him.

“I... thanks”, he blinked, accepting the warm plate and uncovering it. A barf of its smell made his stomach grumble.

“Have you been drinking water?”, Shades asked her with a very parental tone.

“Yes, _tito_ Shades...”, she huffed with a grin, turning to him as Hock took the first spoonful of the stew.

“Hock here tells me you fell because you dove after him to save him.”

“A risk was calculated”, she nodded, resting her hands on her hips. “but man: I’m bad at maths.”

Shades playfully smacked the back of her head.

“Ouch!”

“You better get better at it, then”, he grumbled with no bite. “If you are done here go and drink some more water.”

“Not done”, she said, turning to Hock again, who had ended up spatting a spoonful of the dish back into the plate and was now dissimulating. “Do you have plans, Hock?”, he looked up at her, arching a brow. “Some division or corps in special that you would like to go to? Since... Your battalion got quite decimated during the battle. There are survivors, but I don’t know if they will be put together or scattered...”

He paused for a moment, considering. No: he didn’t have plans. Until that moment, he had been just a cog in a machine. He just did what he was told to do.

“Or... You could stay here. If you’d like”, she offered shyly. “No pressure”, was quickly added.

Hock blinked up at her yet again.

He was being offered a choice. Being offered to be something more than just a piece.

A star, perhaps.

It’s a rare thing in life; but some choices are easy to make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hock is not an OC! You can read his original story in the comic Darth Vader and the Cry of Shadows!!
> 
> Tito --> uncle in Tagalog


	45. G.A.R: Internal Affairs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes the 0th does what it's supposed to do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH *insert CSI intro music here*
> 
> *the whole 0th looks cooly towards the sun. Everybody puts on shades. Only Shades' sunglasses are standard black. Everybody else's are tunned: Dani's have the lesbian pride flag, Pedal and Ratchet have matching poc gay flag, Hock's are star-shaped and he's hyped about it, Ian's have the aromantic flag on them; Venus' are the trans flag and Dogma is holding her hand, wearing straight ally shades; Laa'ka's are the pan flag; Raven's demiboy flag; Breeze's have the non-binary flag--
> 
> I could go on but if you like a character in particular and would want them to have a particular sexual or romantic orientation that's negotiable.

The person at the other end of the line picked up.

“Awwwooooooooo!!!!!”, she howled with a shit-eating grin on her face.

Wolffe sighed in exasperation.

“You know what? It was nothing. I have nothing to say to you.”

“Aw, tito Wolffe... What does a woman have to do to officially be part of the Wolfpack?”, she asked cheekily before clearing her throat. “But I won’t do it again if it bothers you. Sorry. This was way funnier in my head. For both of us.”

The Commander sighed again, but this time there was a forgiving tone to it.

“Dogma said you called?”

“I did. Like a MONTH ago.”

“Yeah, sorry, a couple things came up...”, she scratched the shortest part of her hair. If memory wasn’t failing her, Wolffe had called when she was dealing with Boba, and despite the possibilities of why he could be calling; it had been common agreement that Echo had waited long enough and whatever Wolffe wanted to throw into their plate would have to wait.

And there she was: now that Echo was safely back with his brothers.

Wolffe stayed silent for a long moment, as if bracing himself.

“I might have a lead on your father.”

 

Trick took another shaky step. And another. And another. He was moving, but not fast enough. He could make out Moto casting worried glances at him as his figure grew smaller and smaller as he got ahead.

As the group got ahead.

It was—It was too hot. Too hot—

His knees finally gave out, and he fell to the damp soil with a squelch. Struggling to breathe, Trick could feel Moto halting.

“Keep moving!”, a barked order made the whole group flinch. “Cee tee eight seven three two; keep up or lie down to die with your copy!”

Trick was _almost_ unaware of the tension in the air.

“Sir, please—“, the medic tried to argue to no avail.

A glare must have shut him up.

And then the steps of the marching away resumed.

He sobbed in the confines of his helmet. So that was it. That was how it felt to be left to starve to death, if the illness that had hopped from trooper to trooper didn’t kill him before. Every sick clone had been left behind.

He couldn’t believe Moto was walking away. But he didn’t have a right to complain. After all, he had marched away from Bay. Trick sobbed again, tears and snot mixing with sweat as he pressed his lips together in an attempt to keep his brothers from hearing his misery. It had been hard enough for him to leave Bay, and he knew they were feeling the same way right now, and despite the hurt he didn’t want to drag them down with him—And oh, Force, he was _so sorry_ —!

“Stay still”, said a voice right beside him.

Trick gasped and tried to turn his head from where his helmet was almost glued to the mud, hope flourishing in his chest at the thought of _He stayed, Moto stayed...!_

“Still”, the voice hissed again, and a stillness filled the air for a couple of seconds before his helmet was wiggled off and something pierced the skin of his neck.

Trick cried out weakly, finally able to turn over.

“Moto...?”, he asked in a breath.

But there seemed to be nobody above him.

“The name’s Shades”, the nothingness continued. “I need you to stay still and quiet, yeah? You’ll feel better soon”, the soothing voice promised.

“Wha—?”, he started to ask caught in the beginnings of a panicked state but too weak to carry it on.

He felt a finger against his lips.

“Quiet”, Shades nudged him again, his voice as gentle as it could get. “You’ll be evacuated soon.”

 

The group eventually set up camp for the night. Most of the remaining troops hid away inside the tents, except those assigned first watch. The Jedi General was inside his own tent, completely closed off. They knew he wouldn’t offer to take a turn, but at this point they counted it as luck if they didn’t have to see him until morning.

Inside the tents, a heavy silence hung among those who tried to sleep and those who had surrendered any attempt at it. They sat together, arms thrown over the others’ shoulders as they tried to ease each other’s guilt.

One of the figures watched the others, hugging his knees. His head perked up, and he swiftly unfolded himself.

“Attention, troopers”, he said with an authority that he wasn’t supposed to possess.

They were all exhausted: but eventually everyone in the tent turned to him.

“Keep quiet. You are all being evacuated.”

The heavy silence turned sour, confused.

“Tag, this isn’t funny—“, one started.

“I’m not Tag”, he cut him. “I’m Captain Dogma of the 0th: Internal Affairs”, he continued, and showed them the insignia that they had only seen in the new regs manual that had been sent to the troops when the Internal Affairs Division had been created. “Your General is about to be removed from his post, but we are going to evacuate you first to avoid casualties in case of violent confrontation.”

Eyes darted from the insignia to his helmet, and Dogma finally decided to remove his borrowed helmet. Seeing the unfamiliar tattoo on his face seemed to snap them out of their doubt.

“Oh, _Force...!”_

“It’s...? It’s over...?”

“They’re here! They have come...!”

“Wait wait wait”, Moto demanded above the others. “If you are not Tag: where is he?”

“Sergeant Tag was extracted and evacuated three nights ago. Since then, I have been gathering proof of your General’s faults and mistreatment towards you.”

“You can’t stay, then!”, another trooper hissed. “If he finds out that you have it he’ll kill you...!”

Dogma rose a placating hand.

“The evidence has already been sent and showed to the Jedi Council. His detention is imminent and fully approved. Now: I need you all to exit slowly, alone or in pairs, and head for the southeast. My comrades will retrieve you and take you to the Evac Point.”

There was a moment of shock, of reluctant hope, and then they were grabbing for a partner and stumbling for the entrance of the tent. Dogma had to be quick to reposition himself and raise his hand yet again to stop them from barrelling to the outside.

“Slowly”, he reminded the first pair. “Try not to attract too much attention.”

The Captain waited for them to nod their understanding before lowering his hand. He listened to them walk away and counted three minutes calmly, despite the anxiousness of the troops, and signalled for another pair to step out.

_“Are you sure about this?”, Luna had asked, arms crossed in a worried pout._

_“Sir, you personally asked me to do this...”, he had replied, not really knowing where she wanted to go with that._

_“Well, yeah... I mean, I_ know _you have already been under a lot of pressure before, and I_ do _trust you to keep a cold head, but...”, she had shook her head, as if pretending to scratch all of that. “Just want you to know that if it becomes too much, you can bail out, alright? I’ll be close, so if things get rough you only have to comm us, yeah?”_

He would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that that had been a relief to hear.

So Dogma sent the groups wildly apart, in case this Jedi also had some sort of radar-like powers, or just very good hearing; knowing that his General was probably guarding the Jedi’s tent.

He felt... somewhat comforted at that.

 

A couple hundred meters away, Moto and Quip walked further into the humid night, holding onto each other.

Just as they were starting to wonder if they had taken the wrong direction or just been fooled, figures emerged from among the vegetation, and then there was a medic coming to meet them. They staggered to a stop.

“Vod’e”, Apple greeted them. “This way.”

They were herded further away and out of sight from where they had come. Five speeders came into view, all parked with their pilots talking quietly among themselves or the troopers standing guard.

“What are your names?”, the medic asked them, guiding them to sit down on a couple portable cots.

“Quip.”

“Moto.”

“Right. I’m Apple. I need you to tell me if you are sick or have had any symptom at all.”

“I’m not—“, Quip went to say automatically, but Moto rested a hand on his shoulder and they looked at each other for a long moment. The medic’s gaze was trying to dispel the fear in the other’s eyes.

“We’re both sick. Have been for a couple of days”, Moto admitted.

“Alright. I have a couple hypos for you, then—”

“It won’t work”, the other medic cut him. “None of my antibiotics work.”

There was deep defeat in his voice as he cast his eyes down, guilt over all the brothers he had lost...

“Well, no wonder”, Apple shrugged, and shook his hypo a bit. “But this isn’t an antibiotic: it’s an antifungal.”

Moto shot his head up, staring into the other’s helmet.

“...What?”

“You guys have a fungus, not a bacterial infection. Now, if you would be so kind...”, he left in the air, gesturing to bring the dispenser closer to their necks.

He was too shocked to flinch away when he was injected. Good news is: Quip followed his lead quietly.

“But—How—How did you know?”

Apple put away the empty hypos and took out a couple water packs for them.

“We got notice that someone from your Corps sent a complain: there was some sort of disease spreading among the troops, standard cures weren’t working and the General was refusing taking some men back to the flag ship to run some tests. So we came to investigate. We arrived five days ago, found the ones that had been left behind, and evacuated them.”

“The others!”, Moto threw himself to Apple frantically, eyes wide and begging for answer.

“Being treated aboard our Star Destroyer”, he reassured him, patting the hand holding onto him for a moment before going still. “But... we couldn’t get to all of them in time. I’m sorry.”

Moto let out a shuddering breath, sinking backwards. He felt Quip’s hands easing him down, along with Apple’s firm grip on his shoulders to make sure he wouldn’t collapse on his side. He squished his shoulder briefly.

“Do you think you can walk to the Evac Point? Or do you need a ride?”

“We—”

“Moto needs a ride”, Quip cut him before the medic could come up with a excuse. The other turned to him to give him an affronted look, but he held his gaze and let the weariness of it all bleed into his features, and with that, Moto was disarmed.

“Match here will get you to a speeder”, Apple nodded, and gestured for the trooper to approach.

As he helped him stand, Moto saw another pair of brothers being guided to where they had been resting. Apple turned to them, two more hypos already in his hands.

“Vod’e! This way.”

 

Bay had been left behind, but that didn’t mean he was done for.

Yes, he was sick.

Yes, he was dying.

But he wasn’t the only one. And as long as he was breathing, he would do the only thing that had ever felt right: help his brothers.

So he gathered up the troopers that hadn’t been able to stand after the night brake, sat them together and did his damn best to take care of them. He stripped them of their upper armour, opened their blacks, offered them water and food and washed their burning faces.

He took a sip every now and then; sat down on a rock near his brothers and tried to breathe through the haze and steady his limbs. At one point Bay didn’t even know if they were really quacking or if the problem was his eyes. He was numbly staring at his hands, gathering strength to get up again when he heard the sound of slowing steps and a lean figure appeared at the edge of his vision.

His eyes twitched, and he looked up at it.

“Hello?”, it tilted its head.

Great. He had reached the hallucination phase. He stared at it, willing it away.

“Can you hear me?”, it asked, taking a cautious step forwards. He didn’t move. What for? There wasn’t a young woman in front of him. “I’m with them. Be careful: they aren’t well”, it spoke into its wrist.

Wristcomm. It was a wristcomm. What a high quality hallucination.

“Hello?”, it tried again, taking another step forwards before crouching down. “I’m Dani Luna, Head of Internal Affairs of the GAR. We’re here to get you. What’s your name?”

Bay stared. That was a lot of information for an hallucination to have. But that wasn’t the weirdest fever-dream he had ever had.

Ducky waited a few moments. He had tracked her movement, which was a good thing, but the no-talking was worrying her.

“You look ill. Is it okay if I come closer?”

He let out a shuddering breath and closed his eyes, really fearing that that was the end of the line. He was tired. He might as well lie down...

And he was just leaving the job to gravity, listing to a side and about ready to meet the squelchy soil, when that didn’t happen.

There was a hand supporting his head and a grunt of effort as another hooked to his belt and pulled hard to keep him from falling. Bay snapped his eyes open, gasping loudly, and lashed out at whatever was attacking him.

A startled cry, and he did meet the floor.

“ _Pucha!_ ”

“Dani! You okay?!”, another voice spoke up.

“Fine, fine! Get the medics here, they are disoriented enough that I just got punched!”, the maybe-not-an-hallucination replied.

They locked eyes again, both propping themselves up on their elbows, not exactly at arms length but close enough that she would have to roll away if he tried to lunge for her.

“...Are you real?”, he finally decided to ask, because kriff it: if she wasn’t there wouldn’t be anyone else to hear it.

“I sure hope so”, she replied instead of going with _Are you? What are you, a cop?_

Philosophy and memeing could wait for him to be rational.

“Your name?”, she asked, sitting up and slowly moving towards him, not discarding that he might pull another punch.

“Bay”, he swallowed, arms quacking.

“Dani”, she offered back, and nudged him to lie down.

He was going to ask her what was she doing there, what was happening, what of his brothers, when he saw several squads breaking into the remains of the camp and fanning out. Someone was giving orders in the background, but not loud enough that Bay thought that they were directed at him.

Dani laid a hand on his chest and he distantly wondered what was she doing, but then he saw a vod walking towards them and for a split second he thought it might have been Trick, but...

“How’s it looking?”, Shades asked, lowering his backpack to the mud.

“Infection”, she muttered, eyes unfocused under a heavy frown.

“Brother”, the medic addressed him. “I need you to tell me how you are feeling.”

“Hot...”

“What else?”

Ducky stood up and went to check the other downed troops. They were all already being tended to. Raven slowly stepped away from a lax body, met her gaze, and shook his head slowly. She let out a weary sigh, took a moment to close her eyes and swallow, and turned to Shades again.

“You checked the antibiotics background?”

“Test’s results coming in now”, he said without looking up from his scanner. “Check. There’s traces of a shot in his blood.”

“Not a bacteria, then”, she nodded to no-one in particular.

“Not a virus, either. The fast-acting antivirals aren’t working. Maybe a bigger parasite? A bug or something? They seem to be thriving around here.”

Dani shook her head.

“I don’t think so. There is no human population on this planet; never has been. And parasites require millions of years of co-evolution with their hosts in order to master a vital cycle that actually works for them. At least when said parasites are from the animal kingdom. But guess which organism is too good at taking the step between being saprophytic to being parasitic and absolutely LOVES wet climates?”, she gave a tiny smirk as Shades tilted his head to look at her in the eyes, knowing that they ere already in the same page.

“Fungus”, they said in unison.

 

Finally Dogma stepped out of the last tent. He looked around the empty camp, catching a sight of his General on the second swipe. She was standing near the entrance of the Jedi’s tent, arms crossed, watching him intently. He nodded at her, not really knowing why; since she probably already knew that everybody had been evacuated, and she returned the gesture.

The Captain shuffled his way back to where his brothers were receiving their new charges, and gestured for Match to bring on his Arrest Detail. In no time they were back to the edges of the camp, exchanging another look with Dani and keeping a safe distance.

“General Gaja!”, she called loudly, facing the entrance.

There was a jerky movement inside the tent. Dani felt the Jedi coming to attention, hand going over their weapon. She tensed a bit and took a cautionary step back. She could sense the group behind her, shifting to alertness.

Dogma was slightly more nervous than the rest, but that was to expect; and Venus was in the group to bail the Captain out if it was necessary.

The fabric of the tent’s entrance was slapped aside, the hard but wrinkled features of a bitter man coming to view as he tried to pierce through her with his grey eyes, matching his hair.

“What’s the meaning of this?! Who are you?! And why did my troops let you into the camp!?”, he roared, looking around after speaking loudly, as if expecting the clones to spill out from their tents in a hurry.

Dani just blinked at him for a moment, glad that she had followed Dogma’s advice and planed for an evac of the troops before engaging him. She had wanted to confront him on the stop, affronted by the way he was treating his men; but they had all ultimately agreed to take precautions. Again: she was glad, because this guy didn’t seem above taking hostages.

“I’m General Luna”, she identified herself, because she had come without armour this time. It was uncomfortably hot in this climate. Was it a stupid decision? Perhaps. That was to be seen. “I bring you a message from the Jedi Council.”

She extended her arm and activated the holo-projector.

“General Gaja”, Yoda greeted curtly. “Under investigation you have been. Desolated when we saw your Fall, we were; but the evidence provided by Internal Affairs, undeniable is”, he sighed sadly, closing his eyes for a moment. “Authorized your arrest, we have. Turn yourself so you can be judged in the Temple, we ask of you.”

The projection went quiet. Not that Dani particularly noticed: she was busy keeping track of the growing rage in the man’s expressions, the slight tremble of his limbs and even more important; the position of his lightsaber.

“Ha!”, Gaja scoffed, his cold smile setting on a dangerous curve as he turned to look at her in the eyes. “Is that it? You think that a recording of that old frog asking me to surrender will make me go nice and easy?”

He rose a hand abruptly. Dani twitched, jumping backwards and out of his immediate reach. He grinned madly as he closed his hand in a fist and a tent collapsed. He might have noticed something out of the usual, because his face froze in confusion for a moment.

“The troopers... in there...”, he stuttered.

“First: there’s no one in there. Second: dude, this is _live_ ”, she gestured to the projection with a tilt of her head.

Gaja turned to it too, seeing the wide eyes of Yoda and several other members of the Council.

“General Luna”, from all voices, Plo Koon spoke up. “You are now authorized to use lethal force.”

“Yessir”, she replied, and shut off the device, dropping it.

Before it hit the ground, she was cloaking herself and the Arrest Detail.

Gaja roared and tried to strike at the last spot were he had seen her, but she was already stepping away as her troops took firing positions. They had divided in pairs and were circling the Fallen Jedi, settling at different angles and keeping an eye on their partners and General.

“Coward!!!”, he roared. “That’s what you are: nothing more than a dirty backstabber! YOU are the one who insults the Order! YOU are the one who should be put down! YOU are the menace, not me! I’m just trying to end the war here!”, he kept bellowing as he twirled around, unable to set his eyes on anybody. He shouted and slashed at another innocent tent.

 _So am I_ , she wanted to reply. But that would do no good.

She crouched down to pick up a rock and signalled to Match and Moss. They emerged a bit from the cover they had gotten (just in case, part of the standard procedure they had put together) and readied their weapons.

Dani threw the rock in their opposite direction and the Jedi turned towards the movement on instinct, lightsaber spinning to protect himself.

His hearing wasn’t so bad, and neither were his reflexes: because he turned around and managed to catch one of the two bolts flying at him.

But nothing bounced, because those weren’t blaster bolts.

The electric shock just dissipated against the energy of the laser stick, the other one hitting the rogue Jedi. The man fell to the mud with an startled yelp, lightsaber falling out of his reach, and within seconds the 0thers were pilling up on him, manoeuvring so Hock could snap the Force-suppressant binders around his wrists. With that accomplished, they scrambled upright and Ducky dropped the cloaking.

Gaja still struggled, no doubt trying to throw things at them with his mind to no avail. Dani just stared down at him, eyes tired and some angry lines creasing her brow.

“Let’s just pack up”, she mused, and Venus and Match immediately reached to pull the prisoner to his feet.

“You have no right to do this!!! I am the General of my unit and I will command it as I damn please!!!”, he barked.

“Actually”, Dogma stepped up, figuratively and literally. “we do. You have infracted the Trooper’s Basic Right Regulations, section three sub-section 1.7.56. -C: ‘Denial of the treatment to troops will be considered negligence of the Chief Medical Officer or Commanding Officer if said disease or injury is treatable within limits, and punishment will vary from demotion to court-martial’”, he recited. “And since your CMO passed out as we evaced him and the collected evidence points at you as the head of all this MESS: yes, we have ALL the right to do this.”

Dani couldn’t avoid puffing her chest out, the thought: _That’s my Captain!_ , echoing proudly in her mind. She couldn’t help to notice that Venus was puffing out too as they pulled at the ex-General and directed him towards where they were going to get picked up.

“You okay?”, she checked on Dogma, managing to deflate a bit. It was his victory to enjoy, after all.

Ducky didn’t consider herself the kind that prodded around for the emotions of others (enough of a violation it was that she could know where everybody was as long as they were in her range, and bad enough she felt about it), despite how convenient it was to address unstable emotional states. Humans had an stablished etiquette to express or not express emotions, and it was her duty to learn every person’s set of gestures and ways of talking to read those and not straight up choosing the easy way and vibeing with them at a spiritual level.

Despite that, and Dogma’s usually reserved demeanour, he seemed to take an steadying breath and roll his shoulders back, but not in the military parade way, it was... relaxed, relieved; and with the gesture came a wave of pleasantness so deep that it seemed to be related to _everything_ : his immediate surroundings, his thoughts, she was bold and hopeful enough that it included his very sense of self—

“I’m fine, sir. Thank you”, he replied, and there was such a lightness to it that Dani felt as if just his words were going to make her float. “Shall we head back to the rendezvous point?”, he continued, and so she had to shake herself out of the high she was feeling.

She looked around for a moment and cleared her throat.

“I think I’ll stay and help the Recovery Team salvage up whatever gear there’s left around here, if there’re no pressing matters. You take care of accommodating our charges?”

“Sure thing, sir”, he saluted swiftly, and _boy_ was she proud and glad of how he was loosing his usual stiffness at his own pace.

She watched him go, letting a content smile spread on her face, and started sorting crates.

 

Trick woke up dry, which was a weird thing as of late. And he didn’t feel like there was something growing between his guts anymore, so that was another good thing to score. There was a stinging smell in his nose and he wrinkled it before his brain connected that particular essence with the sterile ambient of a medbay. He opened his eyes to meet a white ceiling peppered with colourful stickers. That didn’t seem right, but it was... nice to see. Their distribution seemed random most of the time, but in some places there were aggregations of them, as if somebody had tried to compose a story. He blinked at it, trying to decipher its meaning, when memories came rushing back.

He gasped loudly and tried to push himself up on his elbows, but his arms didn’t seem willing to even try to withstand any weight.

“Whoa there, vod”, came the voice of a brother.

Trick turned his face towards the source of the sound, right by his side.

“Bay?”

From the bed next to him, Bay gave him a tentative smile.

“Vod’ika”, he exhaled.

“Bay!”, Trick repeated, frantic, and tried to rise up again, but again, his arms failed and his head fell back against the pillow, only increasing his restlessness. “Bay, Force, sorry; I’m so sorry, _kriff_ ”, he was full on sobbing at that point.

“Hey, hey”, the other tried to catch his attention, eyes full of worry. “It’s okay, you are okay—”

Apollo had caught wind of the situation and had been walking towards them, but Bay signalled him that he had it under control. The medic signalled back a _Confirmation?_ , and he replied _Affirmative,_ so the medic rose his hands in surrender, but watched from a distance.

“I left you, I _left_ you, I’m so sorry, so sorry, sorry sorry sorry sorry—“, Trick kept on crying and thrashing weakly on his bed.

Bay could see Apollo was growing antsy just at that.

“Trick, vod, you need to calm down, okay? I’m safe, you are safe: we are all alright, yeah?”, he soothed him, extending an arm towards him.

Trick stopped trying to get up, and instead raised a shaky arm. Bay caught it and held his hand.

“We’re okay, Trick. I know you didn’t want to. And yes: I felt abandoned and lonely but... But I wanted you to live. I wanted you to go on.”

His features contorted even more at his words, another sob wracking his whole body.

“I’m so sorry—”

“I know. I know. But I forgive you, brother”, he smiled, a tear of his own rolling onto his pillow.

Apollo gave them a couple minutes to calm down on their own, then walked over to check on Trick.

“Welcome back, vod”, he greeted. “How are you feeling?”

“...Better”, he replied after a moment of consideration.

“Good. The infestation is mostly gone, but we are going to keep up the antifungal treatment to make sure it stays that way. Stay hydrated, eat as much as you can manage and tell us immediately if you feel unwell. Clear?”

“Crystal, sir”, Trick nodded into the pillow.

“Name’s Apollo”, he saluted with two fingers, and stepped closer to grab the bed’s controls and sit him up. He handed him the device. “Have fun.”

And turned to leave.

Trick used his newfound point of view to examine all beds within eyesight and was surprised to find so many faces that he had thought forever lost. There were some missing, but that didn’t mean—

“Wait!”, he called the retreating medic. “Did you—How many—“, suddenly, he didn’t know how to phrase it.

Apollo turned around to face him, but he avoided eye contact.

“Trick”, Bay called him, gently squishing his hand and waiting for him to turn towards him. “Everybody before Jey’ne... They didn’t make it”, he said softly, words packed with sorrow.

“But—But they found us! They _must_ have found them too!”, he tried to argue, and turned to Apollo again, as if that could be debated.

The medic just shook his head.

“We found you quickly because you were alive, vod’e. But we needed the route drawn in your helmet’s HUD to trace back your steps and pick up the bodies.”

Trick opened his mouth as if he were about to argue further but, thankfully, he didn’t. He cast his eyes down on his lap, digesting the information.

“I’m sorry for your loss”, Apollo offered, uncomfortable.

“What’s... What’s next?”, Bay asked, perhaps in an effort to help his brother move on.

“You rest and recover. That’s your main and only concern now”, the 0ther replied, and intended to leave it at that, but thought better of it with a sigh. “Then you’ll get settled, all together, and have a few meeting with Breeze.”

“Who’s Breeze?”

“Our brand new psychologist.”

 

“Come in, come in, make yourselves comfortable”, Breeze waved them over towards what would be their barracks until they were unloaded at their destination and re-assigned.

The group was hesitating too much for comfort, so Moto took a deep breath and made the first step. Quip was right behind him, and just a beat later, the others followed.

But the medic had stopped dead on his tracks, and so everybody tripped and stumbled over each other. Luckily, nobody fell, and they all repositioned themselves until everybody had a good view of their accommodations.

The room wasn’t overly luxurious (and boy, was Breeze glad that their General had left the interior design to them, because she had quickly offered to buy anything they may need, even _kriffing_ massage armchairs and _no, sir, thank you; we know you want to help but too much fanciness might make potentially traumatized troopers antsy and wary_ ; and so she had shied away and checked with them every now and then with a restlessness of her own, making a visible effort to let them handle it. Ian had been specially proud of her when she had managed to go work on something else when they did their thing), but it was the bunks—No, scratch that—the _beds_ —

They were bigger than bunks. Not queen sized beds, just slightly broader... so, with their already honed folding skills, three persons could fit easily on a single bed. They also sported colourful patterned sheets: all of them different and beautiful in their own way. At the far end, there was some sort of lounge space: with couches and chairs and desks that seemed to already hold some datapads and painting tools.

Some heads turned towards Breeze.

“Are you sure...?”, Quip started cautiously.

“Yes, these are your barracks. You can have five minutes to explore, then we’ll have to talk and after that you will be free to roam or rest; whatever you would like”, they assured them; their movements fluid and slow in a way that soothed just seeing them.

The troopers fanned out, leaving their few belongings carefully on the beds, eyes still wide as they studied them once more. Moto left his half-empty backpack and Quip dropped his right beside it. It was similar with Bay and Trick, but Trick had his head dipped and clear fear of refusal in his eyes as he looked back at his ori’vod, who gave him a nod and a warm smile.

Soon enough everybody was settled and the items in the lounge zone checked over. Slowly, everybody moved back to the front of the barracks, were Breeze had been patiently waiting.

“Alright, then: for whoever hadn’t heard: my name is Breeze, and I am your Quartermaster”, they introduced themself gently. “That means that whatever you need, you can ask me: supplies, information, even if you have something to tell to a medic or commanding officer but don’t feel comfortable enough to speak to them directly; I’m here for you.”

“I, uh”, Bay spoke up. “I thought Apollo said you are a psychologist? Something like a mind-healer?”

“That’s right”, they nodded. “I’m a medic and I’ve received official training on the workings of the mind, as per request of General Luna and with the support of the Jedi Council.”

There was a considering silence after that. Back on Kamino, showing emotions openly was frowned upon, even more if they were negative emotions. They had never really been to one, but for what they could gather talking to a psychologist implied talking about the _bad_ things.

“You will not be pressured into speaking out whatever troubles you with me, of course”, Breeze continued. “In fact: I encourage you to talk to your closest brothers. I am merely the last resort: in case that feeling of not wanting to be a bother to the ones you love most rears its ugly head”, they huffed softly.

That hit home for a lot of people in the room.

“What’s... what’s next for us?”, Moto spoke up, capturing the attention of all of those who had been immersed in thoughts.

“Right”, the 0ther cleared their throat. “You do not have any duties at the moment. Your time aboard _The Unruly_ is for you to rest and recoup, but if you wish so, you can take on patrol duties or other chores”, there were sighs of relief at that. It was already accounted for, another subject left to a small clone committee to decide: free time sure sounded great for a reg-born, and of course clones also enjoyed some downtime, but too much spare time could prove itself to turn out badly for their nerves. “If you would like to take on any job in particular, let me now and I’ll set everything up.”

“Isn’t there anything else we should do?”, another trooper spoke up. “Do we need to...? Do we need to declare to your General, or something?”

“Well”, Breeze blinked. “We have enough evidence against Gaja, but if you want to give us your declarations, that would add to the case.”

Another trooper rose their hand, meekly asking for permission to speak, so they nodded at them.

“Will we have to speak to the General, sir?”

“I’m not above you, vod: not in rank or any other way. You don’t need to call me sir”, Breeze reminded them gently.

“Sorry”, the trooper whispered, eyes low.

“It’s alright. About your question: our regs estipulate that unless you ask for a meeting or decline this right; General Luna is to avoid you at all times. However, if the situation changes you can adhere to the right again.”

There was a moment of shocked silence before some let out huffs with uneasy smiles.

“Guess she doesn’t really like clones, huh?”, was the outline of what was being murmured.

“What? No”, Breeze was quick to catch their attention. “This is so you don’t feel obligated to interact with the higher authorities of our corps. You have been abused by a General, so it’s natural that you would rather avoid figures that hold the same title. I bet she is chewing off her nails wondering if you are comfortable enough right now”, they chuckled for the first time, and even that sound was incredibly light and soothing.

“How’s...? How’s she like?”, Trick asked.

Breeze took a breath and crossed their arms, leaning on the wall. “Well, when we met I did a whole psychological test on her, but I can’t tell you about that in depth: doctor-patient confidentiality”, they explained, eyes glazing for a moment as they thought about the emotional _mess_ that their General was so deep inside. “But I can tell you this”, they sighed, straightening. “She is caring.”

Silence, expectation.

“What else?”

“What else? Not much else. She is caring, and that’s the centre of her whole being: she is happy or sad or frustrated or apathetic based on that. If you are nice to her, she will be nice to you. If you are not, she will avoid you.”

 _If you hurt someone she loves, your bodies will never be found_ , was the continuation of that; but those guys didn’t need to know that.

The soldiers were exchanging glances.

“We will... give it a try”, Moto eventually replied.

 

Bay sat next to Trick on a side of the table of the meeting room. Breeze was there, too, to help keep them calm and manage any stressful situation that might arise. Captain Dogma was already sitting across from them, doing last minute checks, since the meeting should have started a minute ago.

“General Luna will arrive shortly. She always arrives between one and four minutes late”, he sighed, but the way he did it let on that he wasn’t bothered by it anymore, despite feeling a bit bad on their behalf for stalling the situation.

Not even ten seconds later the door swished open and Dani hurried inside.

“I’m here! Sorry, sorry.”

Dogma gave her a look and she returned it, pressing her lips and raising her eyebrows.

“What?”

“What what?”

“What were you doing?”

“...”

“Being a nerd with the fungus again? Did you wash your hands? Did you set fire to your tools?”

“Yes, yes, I took care of everything: no chance that anybody is getting infected”, she huffed, sitting down and blinking at the two troopers. “Sorry: I love biology and I’m messing around with the fungus that infected you guys a bit”, she shrugged self-consciously. “Have to burn it all to make sure there are no accidents. I’m Dani, by the way! Can I know your names?”

Not it was them who blinked, half unsettled by the reminder of the causing of part of their suffering and half amused by the burst of cheerfulness of her introduction.

“Trick.”

“Bay.”

“It’s nice to meet you!”, she smiled, openly and obviously pleased and calm. “Now, let’s begin...”

The meetings had more or less duration, depending on the stress that every individual accumulated. Dogma and Dani weren’t really pressing them, but some questions and declarations were hard to answer or hear. Breeze was pleased by the calm their commanding officers were displaying. Dani didn’t even carry her lightsaber with her, but by they had observed, that was an habit of hers.

Truth is: they had more than enough proof against Gaja, but that was also a chance to get them to speak and acknowledge the situation. The psychologist was taking notes of their own on possible setbacks on each trooper’s mental recoveries. Sometimes, when a meeting ended, it was the couple in question that requested a moment to speak with them professionally. Breeze nodded and set an hour for a meeting.

Moto was the last to be interviewed, coming in alone as CMO. His declaration was the hardest to hear, so much that Breeze immediately offered physic comfort. When the medic saw that the General and Captain didn’t disapprove, he slumped towards his vod. At last, they sat in silence for a while. Dani read his declaration over and over, but her mind kept drifting and getting small bursts of anger. She watched Moto: his greying hair and wrinkled skin, and distantly wondered about his age. He must be a veteran: a very rare thing to see among medics.

She wondered if her father would look like him, now.

“Moto”, she called softly. “Can I ask you a question? Maybe it sounds a bit unrelated, or strange.”

“Sure, sir”, he replied, straightening a bit.

“Has there ever been a clone named Sol with you?”, she asked. He didn’t seem to recall, so she added more information. “Maybe a pilot? Somebody who was gone for a lot of time but returned?”

Moto’s eyes darted around in thought.

“Not that I remember, sir. Sorry.”

Dani didn’t manage to hide the disappointment and slightly crushed hope in her eyes.

“That’s alright”, she said regardless, and carefully avoiding Dogma’s and Breeze’s stares. “Unless you want to add something else, you are free to go.”

 

“Sir? Dani?”, Dogma called when she didn’t turn around.

She startled minutely, slowing her powerwalk away from the meeting room and allowing the Captain to catch up to her. She didn’t quite meet his eyes, crossing her arms and swaying lightly –for the sake of it, Dogma had learned—causing him to frown at her in worry. Luna only avoided eye-contact when troubled.

“Ma’am, I know it’s not my place to inquire, but... who is Sol?”

Her restlessness increased with the swap from swaying to chewing her nails.

Dogma had improved greatly regarding his perception of the world and situation around them, but the general consensus was that it was too much of a 50/50 chance if he would join them or out them for their enterprise.

“He is... a clone that I met before becoming a General. Or going to Kamino”, she didn’t quite lie with a huff. And because she wasn’t a fan of short answers when talking to friends, added: “He is very important to me and, in part, I became a General to find him”, she glanced at her Captain, gauging his reaction. His eyebrows went up in surprise before going back to their original position in a blink, giving an understanding nod. “When Wolffe called you... I had asked him to help me look for him. He said he thought he was with them”, she gestured to the meeting room with uneasiness. “that’s, in part, why I was so on edge while we tracked the survivors and retrieved the bodies...”, she went back to swaying instead of chewing. “I didn’t see anyone resembling him, or at least I didn’t recognise him; that’s why I asked Moto directly. CMOs tend to know most of the men and all”, she shrugged, with nothing more left to say.

They stayed in silence for an eternal moment. Dani fidgeted in place, considering just walking away.

“I... could help you with that, if you would let me?”, he offered quietly. Ducky startled a bit, blinking at him in surprise. “I already look over lots of registers, if you can give me his number—”

“I don’t know it”, she cut him, lowering her eyes. Damn; if she knew it she was sure she would have found her father ages ago.

That if he hadn’t change it to avoid being marked as a deserter and decommissioned.

_Pakshet_

“—well, it’s not standard procedure, but most commanding officers and medics add names to the register”, he slowly went on, still a bit uncertain about when to shut up and when to speak up; but Dani just blinked at him, looking overall crestfallen and near tears.

His thought process halted, scrambling for something to say that would make her laugh or at least smile briefly, but nothing came up: nowadays he shared laughs with his vod’e, but he wasn’t even remotely a funny person and _damn it I’m screwing it again, again again again—_

“...It feels pointless, sometimes”, she murmured, wrenching him away from his spiralling thoughts. She was crying now, and Dogma’s mind slapped him with one of Commander Ian’s tips:

_If she cries you hug her. That’s how it is._

So he does; and she doesn’t try to get away, so that meant he was doing alright.

Dani crossed her arms over his back and clawed at his armour, sobbing into his shoulder. Dogma looked around the corridor, wondering if he should steer her to a room so she would have more privacy, but she was _clinging_ to him and if the ‘if she cries, you hug’ rule was issued by Ian, that probably meant that she cried often and wasn’t specially shy about it.

“W-What if he changed his name?”, she sobbed, gripping tighter. “W-What i-if he’s...?”

“ _Udesii_ ”, the Captain shushed her, softly rubbing her back. One of his hands drifted towards her head and he frowned, realising he had never touched her hair. It looked fluffy, and he sometimes had found himself wanting to stroke it; but maybe it was overstepping bonds, maybe it was too intimate—

He did it. His hand was already there, and well: he was sure that if she didn’t like it she would tell him. Dani actually ducked her head, allowing him more easy access. So he caressed her curls, trying to calm down the shuddering of her shoulders.

“ _Udesii_ , Dani. If he’s out there, we’ll find him”, he promised her.

As he held her, he wondered what kind of connection she might have with that clone. It was improper to ask about that now, that was obvious. But a part of him really wanted to know: if she felt that way for _a_ clone in particular, did that meant that she could feel like that for all of them? Did it mean that she _felt_ like that for all of them?

Was he among the lucky ones that Dani would cry if he died?

 

Later, after calming down and with Grey curled up by her side on the bed, Ducky called Wolffe.

“Commander Wolffe here.”

“ _Su cuy’gar, tito_ ”, she greeted with a brief smile.

“ _Su cuy’gar_ ”, he replied, eyes narrowing as he read her mood.

“Just came back from tiding up the mess from the 632nd. I didn’t find him there”, she sighed.

The Commander didn’t reply immediately, pondering his answer.

“I’m sorry to hear that, kid. But it would have been a miracle if we had found him at the first try. I had been expanding our search regardless, and I have several leads that—”

“Wolffe”, she cut him suddenly, eyes rising from were they had been staring at her lap and gazing at him with a somewhat pained way. “You know...? You know you don’t have to play it as a way to find my father if you have an Internal Affairs related tip, right?”

The question, the _doubt_ hung heavily in the air, and suddenly Dani didn’t want anything else than to hang up and burry her face in her pillow to hide the arising shame she was feeling.

Maybe she would be lucky and suffocate.

“First of all”, Wolffe began, anger restrained in his tone. “That’s VERY unprofessional of you, and as a fellow CO I feel _insulted_.”

Ducky dipped her chin even more; an open book for him to read and acceptant of her blame. Her phone buzzed with a message and she automatically checked it.

 **_Tito Woof_ ** _: As your family, I am HURT that you think that I wouldn’t trust you to do the right thing_

She looked up at his projected image. Wolffe looked up at her too from his own device, meeting her eyes with a tired uneasiness, but was lighter compared to her now trembling lower lip.

“As a clone who knows how most reg-borns view us...”, he proceeded with a sigh. “I can understand why you could think I might do that. But I can’t believe you doubt my trust, Dani!”, he burst regardless, turning around and throwing his hands in the air for a moment. “I can’t believe you don’t trust _me_!”

“I trust you!”, she spoke up without hesitation, her voice wavering. “I _do_ trust you; of course I fucking trust you, you _know_ it!”, she barked back before stifling a sob and doing her best to glare at him.

Because yeah: she had entrusted him Aleluia’s safety on his journey to Coruscant, the search for her father AND their own cell in The Enterprise.

“I just...!”, Dani went on, but seemed to loose all fight in her and just blinked at him tiredly. “I just wanted to make sure we are on the same page. I wanted to let you know that I could be trusted if you were hiding something from me. I didn’t mean to insult you, or question the trust you are placing on me... I’m sorry...”, she sobbed again. “I’m sorry, I don’t even know...!”, she swept the back of her hand over her face, dispersing tears.

“I trust you. Of course I trust you. Not because it turns out that we have a kinship, but because you have _earned_ it, you hear me? You have a pair but are not vane enough that you think everything has to be done your way; and I can _kriffing_ respect that, understood? You can bet I do.”

Luna just nodded as she sobbed, his words making her tear up even more. But the brief smile that flashed over her trembling lips was the sunbeam among the storm clouds.

“I’m sorry that came out as if I doubted you... It’s just—“, she stopped, half hoping that Wolffe would end the sentence for her, but he didn’t. “It gets hard, sometimes”, she admitted quietly, her breaths coming easier now.

“I get it, kid”, the Commander replied, expression softening as he lost himself in memories for a second. “But as long as you are direct and honest with me; I will do the same. Out of respect.”

Dani bobbed her head in agreement and tapped a message back:

 **_Lucky Ducky:_ ** _Mahal ko kayo_

 **_Tito Woof:_ ** _Ni kar’tayl gar darasuum, Dani’ika_

* * *

Laa’ka powerwalked his way over the General without even announcing his presence, but well: he wasn’t required too. The General was about to not be one anymore, so...

“And who are you supposed to be?”, the female Quarren wrinkled her tentacles at him.

The ARC trooper stopped at a safe distance from her, discreetly signalling the brother beside her to do the same thing. By the speed at which the other clone followed his order; he knew their intel was correct.

“ARC Trooper Laa’ka, Internal Affairs; ma’am”, he introduced himself, showing his badge. “If you would accompany me, the high-ups would like to interview you ASAP”, he said diplomatically.

But the Jedi narrowed her eyes at him.

“I’m not going ANYWHERE. I am assigned to this post, and if Internal Affairs wants to have a word with me, General Luna can bring her ass here—”

“The General is currently busy with another case, ma’am”, Laa’ka cut her. “My orders stand: you are to accompany me”, he felt the weight of the Force-suppressant binders under his kama as the air shifted.

“As I said: I am not going anywhere with you, _clone_ ”, she hissed.

Laa’ka sighed: a long, strangely calm sound; and he brought his wristcomm to his face.

“This bitch empty”, he spoke into it.

The Jedi and all the men around stood stock-still for a long moment, frozen in shock.

“How dare you—!”, the Jedi started, tensing up.

“Yeet”, Commander Ian’s voice replied.

A sniper bolt tore through the Jedi’s right knees, sending her to the ground with a pained screech.

“Clear the area, clear the area!”, Laa’ka hollered, aiming his DC at the downed Jedi as she scrambled to turn on her lightsaber.

But she had no-one in range to take as hostage, and he knew that the pain was going to make difficult for her to throw things at them. Or do whatever other Force-trick she might be able to do.

“Drop your weapon, ma’am!”, the ARC ordered. “By order of the GAR’s High Command: you are under arrest! Surrender willingly or we will have to subdue you!”

“Never!!!”, she yelled back. “You’ll have to come here yourself if you—”

Another sniper shot blew the hilt of the ‘saber out of her hand.

“NO!!!”, the Jedi screeched, scrambling for her lost weapon, but with her injured knee she couldn’t drag herself fast enough.

Clones started pilling up on her, pinning her in place. Someone else went and got a hold of the hilt just as she started pulling it towards her. The man struggled to keep his grip on it, and managed to hold on long enough that two brothers more went to help him. Laa’ka sprinted his way to the pile and wiggled the binders to one of her wrists, grabbing at the hand she was using the Force with and yanking it backwards to cuff it with the other behind her grasp. The troopers that had been fighting for the lightsaber fell backwards when the Force-hold loosened, panting at the sudden effort. The dog-pile dispersed and the Jedi was left on the floor for a moment as she screeched and hissed and kicked in rage.

“Commander”, Laa’ka spoke into his comm. “The objective has been subdued.”

“Casualties?”, Ian asked.

“None that I can tell, sir, but I’ll check with the men.”

“Understood. Coming to rendezvous with you.”

“Copy that”, the younger nodded, and hung up, giving his attention to the men around him. “Alright: who’s in charge now?”

“That would be me, uh, sir”, one of the members of the dog-pile replied, doing their best to stand up.

“At ease”, Laa’ka soothed them, since he was also sitting and the other’s arms were still shaking a bit after the struggling. “What’s your name?”

“Mark, sir. Captain Mark.”

“ARC trooper Laa’ka; Internal Affairs”, he nodded back. “You are now officially in charge of all the men under you, Captain. I’m going to need a full report when you are able, but for now I can tell you this: it’s up to you if you proceed with your assignment or fall back with us. Either way: the 0th will offer you whatever support you request.”

Mark blinked at him. She was already used to making hard and fast decisions, but ultimately it had always fallen on the Jedi to take the final decision, and now the weight sat strangely on her shoulders.

“I, uhm—”

“Take a breathe. Stop shaking, drink some water, write that report, hold a meeting with your men if you must; and then decide”, Laa’ka continued. “You can ask for Ian’s insight once he is here. Might take a while. The show-off likes to shoot from as far as possible.”

“I’m going to KILL you all!!!”, the downed Jedi screeched.

“Ma’am: everything you say is being recorded and can be used against you”, the ARC said off-handedly, barely sparing a glance at her. “You have the right to stay silent, by the way. Please take it.”

* * *

Going to 79’s changed.

At the beginning, they were just a support battalion, barely known among the GAR. They were just the Men in Black, those lucky bastards that were always there when that girl that danced so well came.

After becoming Internal Affairs, some groups actively avoided nearing them, while some brothers, looking cautious and different degrees of scared, would approach them and ask them to talk in private with a jumpy whisper.

The first time it happened, the group had been tempted to say no. It was their downtime, after all: maybe they weren’t in the frontlines as much or for so long as some of their brothers; but they still had to deal with some shit. They had exchanged glances until Pedal had sighed and stood up, taking the vod to a corner to speak in private.

As they expected: he came back with a tip on another shitty Admiral. The vod had been so nervous that he had to fill the preliminary report in front of them for them to calm down a bit, with the promise that it would be looked into it. Of course it would be looked into it: practically every member of the 0th was now pretty decent at doing paperwork to avoid the accumulation of cases. Those were sorted depending of gravity of the infraction, evidence supporting the denounce and potential aggressiveness of the subject. Dani had to be sent to the higher ranked. Despite wanting to go with all parties sent to deal with their newest duties, it was impossible to be everywhere at once. Either way: Pedal sent the complaint to Gossip immediately for him to arrange.

After that first incident, more vod’e started approaching them while on the bar, so Venus had sorted out another method: there would be a group of 0thers on work whenever there was one on leave: that way they could still enjoy going to 79’s. If there was a helmet with black markings resting by someone’s feet: that’s where Internal Affairs had it’s unofficial posting. Any approaching vod was invited to a drink (non-alcoholic), and listened to. A preliminary record was discreetly filled and sent; and if there was nothing else to add, the vod left on his way. If the case was so dire that the trooper feared for their life, they applied Ian’s made-up-on-the-spot Witness Protection protocol, and someone immediately took them aboard _The Unruly_. At first they thought that would bring a lot of trouble since they would be marked AWOL, but turns out more clones than expected disappeared during their stay on Coruscant. There was a brief moment of panic in which Dani considered talking to Fox about it, thinking that maybe somebody was kidnapping clones, and then she remembered.

She... She was the one kidnapping clones. With the Clone’s Rights Movement assistance.

* * *

The committee that had accompanied them for the inspection stood around, either as straight as a rod or fidgeting nervously. They elbowed each other in an attempt to get them to relax, but nobody was succeeding. Truth be told: they were way more at ease now than when they had arrived, but still.

The inspection had concluded: Ian and Dani had interviewed the commanding officers while Breeze and Apple checked the state of the medbay and Dogma and Venus lead the inspection on the barracks and troopers. They were now right by the gunships they had arrived with, a few troopers packing up some supplied they had brought along; with all eyes on the Heads of Internal Affairs, air so still that it felt like the buzzing of an insect could set everyone off.

“Alright then”, Ducky finally said, turning to smile at the other General with hands resting on her hips. “We’re done here. Everything’s gucci!”

And with that last word, the 0thers picked up their crates and loaded up.

“Keep up the good work!”, she gave a final thumbs up from the LAAT.

The commanding officers watched them fly away.

“...What’s ‘gucci’?”, the Commander dared to ask quietly.

“I hope it’s a synonym for ‘good’, at the very least”, the Jedi replied.

“So we don’t really know if we passed, huh?”

“Well, they wouldn’t have left if we didn’t, would they?”

* * *

“Dani; why don’t you drink a soda and maybe you’ll calm down?”, Ian asked from where he sat on the transport.

“No”, she replied immediately.

She was buzzing with energy. They had a _lot_ of complaints for incompetence regarding that Commander in particular, and she hadn’t talked shit about anyone in some time, so she was looking forward to chewing out that piece of shit. It wasn’t the nice thing to do: she knew, she knew. But she could also be an asshole every now and then.

As a treat.

“Touching down in T minus two minutes”, Pedal announced through the speakers, and Dani bounced on her feet.

“Dani...”, Ian said in a warning tone.

“I know, I know”, she scowled, knowing he was right but unable to help the way she felt at the moment. “I will do my best, as always, I promise.”

Ian’s eyes softened and he gave a nod. Luna returned it, making an effort to calm herself down: she would see the situation for herself and react accordingly to it. Yeah, totally.

They landed, the doors opened and they hopped out at the edge of the camp. Four standard troopers and one with a pauldron stood there, waiting for them.

“General Luna. Commander Ian”, he saluted. “I’m Captain Hox, sirs. The Commander is this way.”

The 0thers exchanged a quick look and followed him, since the Captain was already on the move, as if he were on a rush.

“Did you confine them, Captain?”, Dani asked.

“Ah, uhm, sort of”, he answered nervously. He stuttered a moment, falling back into step closer to them. “Sir, uh, I know the Commander has made mistakes, but I don’t think he had bad intentions...”, he tried to explain nervously.

Ducky narrowed her eyes at that. They had found before that their inherent loyalty often made them blind to the mistreatments received by their superiors, and other times it was plain threatening that made them zip it or try to defend them. The Captain jerked at her reaction, realizing he was making things worse. His helmet jumped rapidly from her to the tent they were approaching. The trooper standing outside saw them and peeked his head inside, alerting somebody.

Her own escort picked that up and tensed. That just unnerved the Captain even more.

“Sir, please, I know I’m not in any position to demand anything, but—”

Luna halted at the nearly desperation in his voice to look at him with a slight frown.

“—please, re-consider the situation before making any decision”, and, with that, gestured for her to enter the tent.

She made a quick Force-sweep, detected the three clones and unknown signal, and went in; Ian right behind her with a tension that indicated that he was ready to yank her away from danger if needed. On his part, he could feel the faint buzzing over his skin; indication that she was ready to cloak him if needed.

Ducky first checked the clones: three, all of them staring at her, one closer that the other two to their Commander; that one seeming to have been even closer than he was right now, but as if he had attempted to put distance between them with only a second to do so. And the Commander—

Dani jerked to a stop and just stood there, flabbergasted.

“Dani?”, Ian prompted with worry, and hurried to sidestep her to try and locate the threat—

There was no threat. The only thing that was there, among the three troopers, was a sobbing child that barely reached her waist’s height.

The child was a Nagai, staring at them with blatant fear from under their black mat of hair, their plainly white skin making them look half scared to death.

“I don’t want to go to jail!!!”, they suddenly wailed, and cried, and cried.

Dani couldn’t help but flinch at the totally unexpected noise. The closer clone to the kid saw her reaction and hurried to drop to his knees, trying to calm them down. Her heart _crumbled_ at the sight. The Captain entered the tent hurriedly, helmet jumping from his Commander on the floor to the General and other Commander.

“Sirs, I apologize, I—”

But by then Dani was already dropping to a crouch and Ian rested a hand on his shoulder, giving a comforting squeeze.

“It’s alright, brother. We understand”, he reassured him.

“Hey. Hello”, Ducky spoke softly to the scared child, gather up in the clone’s arms, who seemed torn between hiding them with his body or staying still

“P-Please, I don’t wanna...!”, they sobbed. “I don’t wanna go to jail...!”

She blinked, giving a sad smile.

“You are... You are a child. You are _not_ going to jail. You literally _can’t_ ”, she huffed nervously.

That seemed to capture their attention.

“R-Really...?”

“Really”, Dani nodded in encouragement.

“But...! But you are Internal Affairs! You said they take away bad leaders!”, they argued, looking up at his Captain.

They all turned to stare at him.

“I, uh—“, he seemed at a total loss. A nervous wreck.

“Well, we usually do that”, Ian shrugged. “But every case is different. That said: I think we have a lot to discuss.”

The tiny Commander nodded, slowly pushing away from the clone’s arms and straightening at the best of their capabilities. Dani stood up too out of respect, still offering a reassuring smile.

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Fene”, they sniffed. “Fene Ariuna.”

“Nice meeting you. I’m Dani Luna. Our names rhyme!”, she giggled with a goofy smile.

The kid smiled broadly for a couple seconds before clearing their throat and trying to be serious.

“And you are?”, she asked the clone that had been comforting them.

“Ray, sir”, he replied with a start when he realised she was addressing him.

“It’s nice to meet you to”, she offered him a grateful smile.

The trooper relaxed a bit in place, seeing that he wasn’t going to be told off by the close contact with the little Commander.

“So, shall we discuss things here? Ian, tell the guys outside everything’s alright”, she added in an afterthought.

“Yes, sir”, the Captain agreed, gesturing to a table in the corner.

Ray nudged the young (too young) Jedi to sit. Hox sat down beside them. Dani went to sit opposite the kid and Ian went right next to her. Ray lingered for a moment, finally stepping away.

“You can stay, if you’d like”, Dani told him.

He glanced at Fene, who immediately reached for him, and sat down next to them.

“Alright. Since introductions had already been made, let’s revise facts”, she sighed, officially opening the meeting. “I’m gonna be honest here: I had no idea you were a child”, she said plainly with a somewhat sheepish, somewhat uncomfortable smile.

“That’s what you get for not reading the background”, Ian said, loud and clear for everybody in the tent and beyond the hear.

Ducky ducked her head, blushing of embarrassment. “Sorry. Point taken. Won’t happen again.”

The clone Commander just nodded. He was certain that with this experience that would be a mistake that would rarely be repeated.

“We’re here because of the, uhm, inefficiency reports”, Ian took the reigns as Dani hurried to read over their background intel, avoiding saying ‘incompetence complaints’, which was the most correct term. “I am sorry for your loss, sir.”

“Thank you”, Fene sniffed, using the sleeve his their Jedi robes to sweep the tears and snot away, but Ian’s condolences just made them flow again.

Dani rose her gaze briefly from where she just read that the General’s battalion, Fene’s Master, had died not a month ago, and the kid had been in charge of the men ever since then. She compared theirs and Captain Hox’s reports: it was kinda obvious that the Captain had helped them out writing them. In Hox’s documents, he was always trying to excuse the Commander’s mistakes.

_Awwwwww look at him being a total dad—_

“I see here that there’s a lot of input on your behalf regarding planning, Captain.”

“Uh, yes, sir.”

“Would you say that the increase in life losses within your battalion has increased due slow time-critical decisions?”, Ian continued.

Hox swallowed hard.

“Well, sir, I would say that that’s... hard to measure; since these decisions are taken under heavy stress—”

“But the thing is: do you think everything would go more smoothly if you took the decisions without having to consult the Commander?”, Dani summarized, vaguely gesturing at the Jedi Padawan.

Silence, tension.

“Please let me stay!”, Ariuna suddenly begged, trembling on their seat. Ray slid an arm around their shoulders, protectively pulling them to him. “I-If I’m not good enough the Council is going to take me away, a-and assign me another Master, o-or s-send me to the AgriCorps...!”

“What’s with you Jedi and not wanting to farm...?”, Dani muttered to herself.

Ian smacked her arm.

“Sirs”, the Captain called their attention. “I would like to make the formal petition for Commander Ariuna to stay. They lack experience, but the men are already used to working with them, myself included. I strongly believe that assigning us another Jedi would require an adaptation time that would set us way back than if we worked on teaching them what they lack.”

“Very well presented”, Dani bobbed her head in agreement. She glanced at Ian; he seemed to approve too. “But still: could you please answer our question? Honestly.”

The Captain seemed caught between straightening or lowering his head. He made a both combination of both, ultimately casting his eyes downwards in shame.

“Yes, sir. I do believe the decision-making would be faster if it were only on me”, he replied slowly, the words torturing him as Fene looked more and more crestfallen as he went.

“Huh”, Ducky noised, and turned to Ian. “I think Hox should be the top ranking officer, then.”

“Agreed”, the clone Commander nodded.

Ray pulled Fen closer to him.

“I can’t legally demote the Commander, just as I can’t legally make the Captain a General...”, she smirked.

“—So how does a promotion to Commander sounds, Hox?”, Ian completed with a knowing smirk of his own.

Another silence, but this one wasn’t tense, but astonished.

“...Sir?”, he asked carefully, looking for a clarification.

“That way you’ll have the same rank, and since you said yourself that Commander Ariuna needs experience; you can be the one giving the orders until they are fit to do so”, Ian politely did so.

“You can be co-Commanders!”, Luna grinned.

The new term caused Fene to bark a laugh. Ray looked down at them, astonished.

“Co-Cos”, they grinned behind a polite hand covering their mouth.

Dani’s grin grew into an amused smile.

“So”, she cleared her throat, trying to regain her composure. “What do you think? Or had you thought of something else?”

Ray looked up and stared at Hox until he turned to look at him.

“Only if Ray gets promoted to Captain”, he boldly blurted out.

“Wha—?!”

“Deal!!!”, Ducky was quick to sentence.

“...So I stay?”, Fene asked fearfully.

“You sure do, kiddo”, Ian nodded.

They looked up at Ray.

“I stay!!!”

“Yes, you do!”, the soon-to-be Captain smiled, tears of joy almost flooding from his eyes.

“I’m staying!”, Fene hollered yet again, throwing themselves up to hug his neck. “Hox, I’m staying!”, they repeated when they unglued themselves from Ray, this time going for the soon-to-be Commander.

“You are!”, he couldn’t help but sob through a smile, patting their back.

* * *

Something didn’t add up.

The tension that had surrounded the inspection was different that what they were getting used too. Not nervous, but... dreadful.

Despite the initial red flag and the exhaustive investigation, they couldn’t find any proof of mistreatment or incompetence. The men refused to make any declarations, which was another red flag, per se, but technically they had the right to not do so; so the 0th couldn’t really use that against the COs.

They had been escorted back to their gunships, the tension still sticking uncomfortably around them.

Dani had stood there in silence for a long moment, reticent to leave when there was something clearly wrong. But they had found nothing, and nobody was speaking up, despite the fact that that was the Battalion with more troopers sent for reconditioning in the whole GAR.

“Well, then”, she finally sighed, because there was no point in prolonging the agony. “Everything’s good.”

At her words, the 0thers packed up.

“Keep up the good work, General. Commander”, she nodded politely.

“A pleasure having you here, General Luna”, the other reg-born, non Force-sensitive bowed a bit.

With that, she disappeared into the transport.

The ones left on the ground watched them leave, the hard-rock tension starting to buzz with imminent violence.

“Who was it?!”, the General roared, and all troopers made a visible effort ‘to not flinch: some succeeded partially, some didn’t at all. “I said: WHO WAS IT?!”, he bellowed yet again, turning around, scanning the frozen forms of the people under his command. “Was it you?!”, he accused with a finger, turning to his Commander.

“No, sir, I—”

“Arrest him!”, he snarled, turning to another two troopers. “Arrest him, I say; or I’ll make sure none of you sees a food ration in two rotations!!”

The Commander clenched his fists for a moment, but soon unclenched them, as if the fight drained off of him.

“...Would you like to file a formal complaint?”, a voice whispered by his ear.

The poor man almost jumps out of his skin. He gulped down, the cold sweat that had been dripping down the back of his neck drying for a second. Just as he was opening his mouth to respond, the General fell to the hard ground with a loud _Ouffh!_

“You can’t do that. That’s illegal”, the air said.

The General doubled over and screamed, as if somebody had kicked him in the stomach.

“Gus Gantan”, Dani started, slipping into existence, pointing her blaster at his head just as a dozen of other 0thers appeared circling them, guns also trained on the downed. “You are under arrest, charged with abuse of power and waste of resources”, she declared as she cuffed him.

“Waste of resources?! _They_ are a waste of resources! Defective!! All of them!!!”

“You have the right to stay silent—”

“Didn’t you get the _kriffing_ reports?! They need to be reconditioned! Not me!”

She slammed his head against the dusty ground.

“Listen here, _tarantado ka_ ”, she leaned down to snarl right by his ear. “When a teacher does an exam and more people fail than pass, that’s not on the students; it’s on the teacher. Hm? Do you get it? Do you get the analogy? Good”, she hauled him up and pushed him towards Hock and Feather, who took a firm hold of his bounded arms as their gunships returned. “I’ll make sure you never get to be in charge of _anyone_ again.”

The man still twisted in the troopers hold to snarl at her over his shoulder. Dani gave him a look of disdain, fading as she turned to the Commander.

“All reconditionings issued by Gantan have been revoked”, she informed him. “Your men will be returned to you. If you’ll accompany my Captain and CMO, they’ll fill you in on your next steps. Now, if you’ll excuse me; I have a prisoner to escort.”

* * *

Yet another General and Commander _and_ another Commander sitting nervously at the other side of the table. It was starting to get boring, so to spice it up Dani had decided that Dogma would be leading this one.

“In general, you are doing well; but there’s room for improvement”, the Captain stated, very diplomatically.

The three inspected relaxed a bit, especially the Jedi Padawan.

“Your men seem to be happy with your leadership, so that’s a big plus; and you don’t have many losses per battle, but we think that some little changes might decrease them even more. In conclusion: we are happy with how you are doing; would like you to improve, but if you don’t there won’t be repercussions because you are already doing good. I would suggest that you send us copies of your reports and battle plans so there can be some back-and-forth that might give you new insights on your strategies”, he left in the air, glancing at Ian and Dani.

She gave a vigorous nod, arms crossed with an aura of blatant pride for him.

“I agree, Captain. General?”

“Me too”, she shot them a smile before turning to the inspected. “Thoughts, opinions, suggestions?”, she prompted.

They exchanged looks, letting on an easy enough communication among them that they didn’t need words. They were a good team, there was no doubt of that.

“We agree to your terms”, the General confirmed.

“Excellent!”, Dani smiled. “We’ll stay in touch, then. Good job.”

* * *

That wasn’t a planned inspection. They were just dropping some wounded troopers in a Medical Station, and the sadness and helplessness hit her like a rabid kangaroo.

“What’s wrong?”, Hock asked, worried.

Laa’ka elbowed him to a side so he could stand in front of her, glaring at the other for a moment. These two had made a competition of trying to be her right hand. She would have to end that soon.

“Everything”, she sobbed.

And promptly sent as many men as she could to scout the installations and talk to the patients.

“The doctors barely talk to the patients”, Bubble informed her.

“And the droids aren’t authorized to talk to them about their condition either”, Shiver chimed in.

“I tried talking to one of the Medical Officers about it, but they dismissed me”, Breeze grumbled with the total support of the others 0th’s medics.

“Try again. I’m coming with you”, she almost growled.

 

“—we know what we are doing, and the patients have NO need to know their diagnosis—”

“Of course they have! For their tranquillity! For their mental health!”, Breeze argued.

“WE are doing our best to get them back on their feet the fastest way possible—“

“And that means isolating them from the few people they know in here and confine them to either bedrest or physical therapy?!”, Shades refuted.

“YOU will not raise your voice at me, _clone_ , or—”

“ _Anak ng puta_!”, Dani revealed herself, jamming a finger in the Rodian’s chest. “You better retreat that, because YOU have no right to speak to him like this! Not Shades, not the people working under you and sure as hell not your _patients_!”

“YOU have no right to tell me how to do MY job!”, the doctor spat.

“Oh, but do you know what I have a right to do? Writing a report about your practices and management of the facilities!”

The other scoffed.

“So what? You are supposed to write reports on commanding officers, not medical staff!”

“And you know what? I’m damn GOOD at that. What makes you think that the Doctor’s Association won’t be _very_ interested in knowing my opinion?”, she wielded her words like a dagger.

That seemed to do the trick, rendering the woman mute for a long moment.

“You better have renounced by the time I’m done asking for your replacement”, she added with a final snarl, already tapping at her wristcomm.

 

Luminara Unduli walked in the Medical Station with her Padawan Barriss Offee and the rest of the 41st and had to stop for a second at the apparent chaos in the hallways. Troopers in black and white exited and entered rooms non-stop, ducking each other as they went on with their assignments or converging with somebody to compare notes on the datapads they all carried.

“Rain! I’m looking for somebody called Rain; Sunbeam is looking for her!”, someone hollered.

“I’ve found red armour with painted flowers; is it Killer’s??? Can someone confirm???”, another one spoke when the later was done.

“Rain is in the 3rd floor, hab-suite 203; I just heard Nest talking about her!”

“Thanks!!!”

“The 41st is here!!!”, someone realized, and most of the troopers hushed and scurried off quickly.

Suddenly only Moss was left in the hallway, alone in front of the General, two Commanders and the men they led.

“Uh... General Luna is this way, sirs”, he gestured towards the end of the corridor, and resigned himself to be their guide. “Apologies, sirs... The General and our medics thought the way this Station was being operated was less than desirable, so she has us making lists of who knows who so the patients can be relocated with friends and brothers they know and trust. That decision is supported by our psychologist”, he added as they entered a lift.

“We came as soon as we were able”, Luminara said politely.

“We are aware, sir. That’s why we starting sorting in your absence. We thought you would agree with our changes.”

The elevator dinged as they arrived at their destination.

The atmosphere was very much like the one they had encountered upon first contact, but this time Moss cleared his throat loudly and almost all noise and movement halted immediately.

Except for Dani.

“ _Lintik na yan!_ This place is a fucking mess! _Bwisit_ , who the fuck sorts patients by chances of survival when assigning rooms?! Who’s the _gago_ that decided this—”

“General, the 41st is here!”, Moss called hurriedly before she could go on with her cussing rant.

“Finally!”, the younger’s exclamation came from an unknown place, and suddenly she came almost barrelling from a lateral corridor.

The newcomers leaned back a bit at her apparition, her momentum making them think for a second that she was going to collide against them without a care in the world; but she stopped outside they personal space.

“Hi, I’m Dani Luna”, she said quickly, offering a hand to shake.

“General Luminara Unduli”, the Jedi said slowly, _too slowly_ for Ducky’s taste at the moment. “This is my Padawan Barriss Offee”, she offered her hand to her too, and thanks the Force she was quicker in the act. “And Commander Gree.”

“Hi!”, Dani chirped, with a light in her eyes that wasn’t there when she had greeted the Jedis as they shook hands.

Once the introduction was done she rested her hands on her hips and smiled at Unduli.

“Your mess now.”

She snorted at the collective slight widening of their eyes.

“Kidding. Come with me, Gossip is in charge of the re-distribution!”, she waved at them, turning to powerwalk deeper into the building.

“General Luna, where is the Station’s Administrator?”, Luminara asked.

“Confined. Isolated from her peers, who are being chewed out in sentient decency by all my medics and whoever feels like giving them an earful, to be honest”, she shrugged. “You can visit her for interrogation, of course. I’ll have someone take you to her once you’re up to speed with what’s going on”, she offered quickly. “The point is: as you may have already put together; the patients weren’t being treated right. Not in a medical sense, treatments assigned are good; I meant at a personal level. I don’t know about you, but the fact that doctors won’t talk with their patients about their condition and droids are forbidden to do so has me _livid_. I mean: they wouldn’t even tell them if other patients, _residing right next door_ , were still alive or not!”, she let emotion flood her voice, because _pakyu_ , she was ANGRY.

She considered herself lucky that the Jedi Master decided not even try to scold her; and hurried to take her to the security centre so Gossip and Ian could show the newcomers some of the evidence and declarations already reunited. Barriss and Gree were sent with other men to speak to the patients for themselves, some already offering to help with the new sorting the 0th had prepared.

“I admit I thought your actions were rushed, General Luna”, the General said with her everlasting calm; so similar to Shaak Ti’s. “But it appears your decision and course of action was proportionate.”

“Thanks, I guess...”, she said slowly. “Do you agree with all of this, then? Will you take charge of the Station until a suitable substitute is sent?”

“I will”, she nodded with that mix of serenity and magnificence and _did that woman know how to move faster that 2km/h?!!! GEEZ!!!!_

“Cool”, Dani chirped with a quick smile.

* * *

“I am very pleased with your work, General”, Palpatine smiled creepily. Ducky abstained of rolling her eyes. “I’ve heard your dedication could be compared to one of... an Inquisitor.”

“Haha”, she laughed under her nose.

“What’s so funny?”, the Chancellor asked with honest curiosity, half wondering if she was already mocking him.

“Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition!”, she blurted out, and broke off laughing.

“...The what?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dani, reunited with Yaddle and Ian and Dogma and Breeze and Shades and Bail Organa finding herself helping out with a draft of Clone's Baseline Rights while setting up the Internal Affairs Departament: *leans her elbows on the table and joins her fingertips in typical Mr. Burns pose*: Exxxxxxxxcellent!!!!
> 
> Insults and swear words in Tagalog provided by CDR_Grae!  
> Lintik --> similar to damn. Mild, not said if you are extremly angry/ or you are so angry you want somebody to be struck by lightning  
> Pakyu --> fuck you  
> Pakshet --> the words fuck and shit combined  
> Walang hiya --> meaning somebody has no shame  
> Tarantado ka! --> you are an asshole!  
> Bwist --> very mild cuss and often said when you are annoyed at something  
> Gago/gaga --> means you are calling someone stupid  
> Anak ng puta! --> means son/daughter of a prostitute (insults the child, not the mother)
> 
> Mahal ko kayo --> way to say a member of your family that you love them


	46. You'll Miss The Thorn On Your Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coruscant Guard angst, hell yeah!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have finally learned how to attach images to my fic, so now there are drawing in Chapter 4, 25, 42 and the Keeli chapter!!! For those who haven't seen it

Ducky’s phone buzzed. At first she ignored it: whoever’s text it was, it could wait until she was done reading this tale to Aleluia. The boy was already falling asleep; basked in warmth and the company he craved for.

But the phone kept buzzing: twice, thrice, four times, and Dani startled slurring as her mind tried to think who might be sending so many texts so quickly. And then it clicked: it wasn’t a text. It was a phone call, just that her phone had been set to vibration for years.

The fact was so unfamiliar that she fell silent for an uncomfortable moment before her mind slapped her with her own rule:

_Calls emergency only_

She casted a worried glance at Aleluia, who was frowning a bit in his sleep, probably due to the buzzing, so she stood up from the mini chair she was sitting on as quickly and silently as she could and dove for the phone, answering it and covering it with her other hand before elbowing the door to the living room to open.

“-ni?”, a voice asked as she uncovered the receiver. She still took a moment to read the contact info.

“Sound?”, she replied, taking the device to her ear. “Hello?”

“Dani!”, the Guard answered, sounding relieved. “I heard the 0th is on Coruscant! Are you here? Are you busy?"

“I was getting done with a... thing”, she wavered. “I’m free now. What is it?”

Yaddle peeked at her from the door to her room, having noticed her arising anxiety.

“It’s... It’s Commander Fox. He is in bad shape.”

Alarm spiked from within Ducky, sudden and cutting like a knife and threatening to startle anyone nearby.

“What happened? Is he hurt?!”, she spoke quickly, already fumbling to put her shoes on.

“No, no!”, he hurried to reassure her, noticing that he was worrying her. “Not exactly, it’s just—We’re worried about him. Like; REALLY worried. Please come so we can explain”, he ended up saying, somewhat uncomfortable.

“...Alright”, she replied slowly, also slowing down her movements. “Where are you?”

“Guard’s barracks. Near the Commander’s quarters.”

“Copy that. I’ll be there as soon as I can”, she said, already making calculous on how long it was going to take her to get there.

“Thank you. We’ll be waiting.”

And with that, they ended the call.

“What is it?”, Yaddle asked with concern.

“Something has happened to Fox”, Dani replied, mindful of keeping her voice low to not wake Aleluia up. “They want me to get there to explain.”

“Hm”, the elder hummed, tilting her head. “Still stressed, you are”, she noted.

“Yeah”, she admitted, eyes darting around the room. “I have to get there but I can’t pilot for shit and it’s Pedal’s free night; so I don’t really want to call him to pick me up if I can help it, but—”

“Take you, I will!”, Yaddle chirped.

Dani blinked at her, astonished for a moment before her maternal concern grew greater than the surprise.

“I don’t want to leave Aleluia alone...”

“Fine he would be”, Yaddle reassured her. “A guardian we can get him; if ease your mind that will.”

“At this hour...?”, she checked her crono. It was quite late. Aleluia should have been to bed hours ago, but they had prolonged their playtime because neither of them wanted to quit.

“Making this too difficult, are you”, the Jedi Master grumbled, already making a call.

“...What...?”, a sleepy voice answered.

“Bant.”

“Yaddle”, the Mon Calamari acknowledged her. “Why on the world are you—”

“To watch over Aleluia, we need you.”

“I’ll be there in less than five!”, she replied quickly, 100% alert.

And the call ended.

“So you are favouring Bant, now?”, Dani asked, tilting her head with a quirk of an eyebrow.

“Nah”, the other smirked. “Well rested, Vokara needs to be. An exhausted Chief Healer, we cannot have.”

“And Jocasta?”

“Her beauty sleep she needs.”

Dani snickered, and both semi-settled to wait for Bant. It didn’t take long for her to arrive, and they both informed her that they just needed her there to tell Aleluia that they had gone to help some friends in need. Ducky picked up her satchel with a variety of things that she might need or not and allowed Yaddle to climb onto her shoulders, picking a quick pace towards the hangar.

“I didn’t know you could drive”, the human hummed as Yaddle climbed into the driving seat, adjusting it so she could see through the windshield and reach the controls.

“Bring me memories from when we met, this does”, she giggled.

“You didn’t drive when we met”, Ducky pointed out. “I think... Mundi did?”

“Scared enough you were”, the Jedi Master shrugged, a smug grin steadily growing on her face. “Handle my driving, you could have not.”

 

An undetermined span of time later the speeder parked right in front of the Guard’s barracks. Dani was holding onto the seat for dear life, wondering how they were still alive after the dozens of traffic laws Yaddle must have ignored, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘you drive like a granny’.

“You—“, she hissed through clenched teeth, seeing the elder grin from the corner of her eyes and hating it “—are a menace!”

Yaddle just giggled, opening Ducky’s door.

“Go now. In a rush, weren’t you?”

“You”, the human went on, pointing an accusing finger at her. “are not allowed to drive my child ANYWHERE!”

“Follow the rules I can when want I do”, the Jedi scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Drive safely with Aleluia I always do.”

Dani still held her finger in the air for a moment before relenting.

“Alright”, she mused, having no real reason to believe that Yaddle would be reckless with Aleluia on board. “Thank you for brining me.”

“Welcome you are”, she nodded with a mischievous smirk. “To wait here, do you want me to?”

“I don’t know... I don’t know how long it will take and I don’t want to keep you”, Dani voiced her concern, scratching at the shortest part of her hair.

“Meditate I will”, Yaddle waved away the issue, settling more comfortably into the pilot chair. “But leave I will if more than three hours you take.”

“Gotcha”, she nodded in acknowledgement, “Thanks again”, she repeated, and turned to the door.

Her General bandage opened the doors for her, and she did a Force-sweep just as she stepped inside. She waved at the guards and informed them that she was there just to see some friends and disappeared down the corridors, chasing Sound’s presence.

Her steps were long and hurried yet pretty silent. It still resonated a bit in the earie silence of late night, but she realised she was being sneaky unconsciously. She entertained herself trying to make more noise without being obnoxious; but she wasn’t really managing. Ducky snapped out of it when she heard hushed voices nearby and double-checked with her Force-sight.

“Sound?”, she asked out loud, trying to be heard but not loud enough to bother the sleeping guards.

The conversation ended altogether and hurried steps came in her direction, until Sound was peeking into the corridor she was coming from.

“Dani! She’s here!”, he turned to tell to somebody. Probably the four troopers waiting with him.

She trotted the last stretch of distance and came into some sort of lounge room connecting different hallways. There were some simple armchairs and small tables scattered around and; as she had sensed, five clones in total.

“I came as fast as I could”, she told her friend, having a brief flashback of the horrors of Yaddle’s driving; but forcing herself to snap out of it as Sound offered his arm for a gauntlet bump. She reciprocated without thinking, not remembering that she wasn’t wearing her armour. “Ouff!!”, she yelped, shaking her limb to lessen the sting of the impact.

“ _Osik_ , sorry!”, Sound immediately covered his mouth, blushing in embarrassment. “Shit I didn’t realize you weren’t wearing your gauntlets, sorry, sorry..!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay”, she was quick to reassure him, already laughing herself. “I forgot too, so let’s just say that we are both idiots and leave it at that.”

“ _Sounds_ fair”, he smirked, giving her a knowing look.

Dani snorted, and would have gladly kept joking around with him, but she was supposed to be there for an emergency and she managed to convey that emotion through her eyes and pressed lips to keep her amused smile under control.

“Uh, yeah, right”, the Guard straightened. “Vod’e, this is Dani. Dani, you remember my partner—“, he started, gesturing to the closest men to him.

“Hey!”, she greeted happily, and went to offer her hand to shake. “Long time no see! I think I never got your name!”

He took his time to make his own approach, hesitant even. Now that she thought of it, the other Guards were also regarding her from a safe distance, probably trying to get a read on her.

“...It’s Wave. Captain Wave”, he finally replied, shaking her hand once with a brief, if not somewhat forced, smile.

“Oh!”, she voiced, taken a bit aback by his demeanour. She had been about to ask if his name complemented Sound’s, as in Sound-Wave; but she didn’t want to make him more uncomfortable than he was. “It’s, uh, nice to finally meet you”, she said instead, giving him space and a tentative smile.

He then seemed to catch on on the fact that she had caught on on his mood, and looked surprised and guilty for a moment; almost looking like he was going to apologise, before running his hand through his just-beginning-to-grey hair and taking a deep, calming breath.

“Likewise”, he finally said, and with that they were more or less at peace.

Only now, with disappointment pooling somewhere between her chest and stomach, Dani realised that she had hoped to have such an easy-going relationship with Wave as she had with Sound.

“I am Commander Thire”, said man took a step closer to her, taking the initiative on shaking hands, and that earned him a pleased smile from Ducky.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Commander”, she threw in the title in an effort to let them know that she liked using titles sparingly. Hopefully Wave wouldn’t take it as lack of respect towards him— _Fuck_ , from all the times, she had to be a social mess _now_?!

“It’s an honour, sir”, he nodded, and then another bold one was approaching her too.

“The name’s Rys.”

“My pleasure.”

“I’m Jek.”

“Hi”, she offered a smile.

With introductions made, a beat of silence filled the air, and uneasiness grew again in Dani.

“So”, she started, glancing at each one of them. “What’s the situation?”

Grief settled around them as the brothers exchanged looks. Ducky shifted on her feet, looking like she had an approximate idea of what was about to be said but still needing confirmation.

It was Thire who sighed and spoke first.

“About two weeks ago, Commander Thorn was killed in action”, he spoke heavily. He looked up at her to gauge her initial reaction, and was met with sad eyes and a respectful silence.

“I’m sorry for your loss”, she murmured, looking down for a moment.

_Another uncle that I will never meet..._

Thire nodded in appreciation to her words, wetting his lips to keep going.

“Thorn and Fox were... very close. As professionals and friends. They basically carried the Coruscant Guard together. It’s a stressful job, but they managed. But since Thorn died... the work isn’t easing up. And we tried to offer our help to Fox, but he kept shutting himself down and hiding in his quarters—”

“We’re worried”, Jek summarized and admitted.

“Today I caught a glimpse of him and it didn’t even look like he was in his body...”, Wave added, shifting on his feet.

“That’s why I thought to call you”, Sound said, rubbing his fingers together in his own nervous tick. “Fox outranks us, so there’s some lines we can’t cross... But _you_ outrank _him_.”

“And what you want me to do?”, she rose an eyebrow, crossing her arms. “Go: ‘ _Hey Fox, I’m here as a General to order you to practice some self-care!’?”_

“Well. No. We just need you to open the door for us and cover us if he takes it very badly”, Rys clarified.

“Huh”, Dani tilted her head, internally thankful for the honesty.

“...So... Will you help us...?”, Thire pressed.

“Sure”, she replied immediately. “Is there a plan or something or are we going wild and just knocking on his door and being awkward in general?”

“We’re going with the latter”, Sound bobbed his head.

“Alright then”, the General shrugged.

“Ah, Fox’s quarters are this w—“, Rys started, but Dani was already on her way there. “...Has she been here before?”, he whispered to Jek.

“Haven’t you heard? They say the 0th’s General can know were everyone is _and_ turn invisible. The ultimate vigilance asset”, he whispered back.

Sound smacked the back of their heads as Wave and Thire walked by.

“Those are just rumours! Scary tales so the COs behave!”, he huffed, and joined his other brothers.

Jek and Rys exchanged a glance, and then trotted after the others.

Dani was already standing by Fox’s door, a deep frown over her unfocused eyes.

“Uh, sir...?”, Wave inquired.

She snapped out of it, but her frown didn’t ease.

“You are right”, she said, voice low and thoughtful. “He needs help.”

With that said, she knocked on the door.

“Fox?”, she called out loud. “Fox, this is Dani. We met in a gala some years ago? Blue vest? Got laid? Can you come out for a moment?”

No response, and her Force-sight showed that the Commander wasn’t moving at all, barely stirring.

Thire took the initiative again and knocked on the door too.

“Fox, please. Open the door. We need to talk.”

“I’m going to bust the door”, Dani declared, and dropped to a knee in front of the control pad, taking out her switchblade and lodging it in one of it creases to spring it out of the wall.

“Hey, hey!”, Jek waved his hands in alarm. “Shouldn’t we, I don’t know; insist a bit more on being him inviting us in?”

“Suit yourself”, she shrugged without turning to look at him, pulling wires out of the door and exploring the inner part of the control panel, just like Unruly had taught her. Now she just had to find the password-input wire and bypass it to the opening trigger...

The door swished open, interrupting Jek’s knocking.

Ducky stood up and blinked at the perplexed Guards, only doing a gesture with her arm to invite them in.

They exchanged quick glances for a beat, and then Wave stepped in. Luna waited for the others to trickle after him before entering herself. Her steps were cautious as she walked further inside. There probably wasn’t any hazard, but it was a new space, and she wanted to take everything in. The main room seemed to be Fox’s office, or a watered down version of it if he had a working place somewhere else: there was a large desk near the back wall of the room with datapads pilled on it, apparently classified in three stacks. On her left there was a closed door, probably leading to a private refresher; while the one on her right was open and voices came from within it, so she guessed that was were Fox had his bed.

That was a lot more rooms than she was used to see for Clone Commanders. Dani stored the observation in a corner of her brain in case it became relevant at some time and went over the stacks of datapads, opting to give her uncles some privacy. She sat on the lonely chair and picked up a tablet.

Blocked.

She scowled at the password request and toyed with the idea of introducing things at random, like FoXY or yeep-yeep or CoruscantGuardRules!!!!!!; but she discarded all of those because if she got the pad permanently blocked Fox was gonna murder her for sure. She was carefully placing it in its original place when Sound came through the open door, eyes wide with worry.

“Dani!”, he gasped. “Something’s wrong with Fox!”

Yeah, she knew. It had been a challenge to ignore his turmoil and pain and not barrel to him and gather him up in her arms like she wanted to do.

Instead of saying so, she followed Sound into the smaller room, where Wave and Rys were kneeling or crouching by their brother’s head. Thire tore his sorrowful eyes from the other Commander to look at her, worrying his lip with his teeth.

“Sound says—“, he began, and paused to swallow. “That maybe you can do Force-healing, or something?”

“Maybe”, she replied quietly, her movements shy as she approached the bed.

Thire tapped Wave’s shoulder for him to step away and allow her access. The Captain reluctantly stood up and stepped away, watching her closely. She tried not to take it personally. He was probably just worried about his brother. Dani lowered herself to the floor and sat cross-legged, studying Fox in silence. He was lying on his side and facing them, with his back to the wall. His eyes were half-open and dull, but strangely active as they focused on close movements. He was dressed in his blacks, which were damp with sweat in some parts and smelled quite bad, to be honest, but she wasn’t going to complain because everybody sweats and it stinks and that’s how it is. It seemed like he had attempted to cover up with his blanket and then had proceeded to fight it and now it was coiled around his legs like a hungry python. He also seemed to be a bit thinner that what was standard for clones. Not as skeletal as Echo had been, but still; it could be told that he hadn’t been taking proper care of himself.

“Fox”, she called softly, giving him time to study her features.

“...’na...”, he slurred, frowning briefly.

“Yeah”, she confirmed, keeping her voice calm and non-threatening. “I told you I would help you if I could, didn’t I?”, she continued after a moment of silence, spent thinking of a way of saying that she would have liked him to contact her if he was in a bad place without putting the blame on him or making him feel guilty.

“I don’t... I don’t need help...”, he muttered, shifting on the bed, trying to lie on his stomach.

“Fox...”, Thire sighed.

“I don’t need... you...”, he said, giving Thire an ugly look.

Literally everybody flinched at that.

“Hey!”, Dani jumped; because it didn’t even matter if clones were specially sensible to feeling needed and rejection from their brothers: that set of words just HURT. “That’s not a nice thing to say!”

Surprisingly, Fox flinched at her light scolding. Maybe it was her mom-powers. He closed his eyes again and melted into the bed, frown deepening and lower lip trembling.

_Oh fuck I made him cry_

He sobbed. He sobbed and immediately tried to repress it, and it broke Ducky’s heart.

“Fox”, she called softly, still not touching him despite wanting to, because they weren’t that close, they had only met once—“Fox, it’s okay. You can’t keep it inside. You gotta let it out...”

He buried his face on the pillow, refusing to. Dani leaned back and tilted her head to look up sadly at the other Guards. They were also shifting uncomfortably, not really knowing were to look but also not making any move to leave.

“Fox”, she tried again. “We all want to help. We’re here because we care about you; we want you to get better... But you have to let us. Please, let us help”, and as she spoke, she stretched an arm slowly and rested her hand over his nape, making an offering of relief.

The energy was sucked off of her, like a dehydrated sponge absorbing water. And just like that, the dam broke.

Dani gave a reassuring squeeze and stepped away and out of the room, feeling too much like an intruder.  She _did_ want to comfort Fox, but it wasn’t her place. Not when his brothers were there, just as or more worried than her. So she worked on her impulse control and sat back on the chair to check if all datapads were locked.

They were.

She went to explore the unknown door, and indeed: it was a refresher. Tiny and basic, but at least it was private. She went back to the chair, almost started rummaging through the drawers but deciding against it because that would be rude. Her hands drifted to her phone, or her phone drifted into her hands; she didn’t even know at that point, and was considering calling Yaddle when someone came out of the bedroom.

Wave was standing at a respectful distance, looking more tired than uncomfortable. Still, it seemed to take a noticeable effort on his part to hold her gaze.

“Thank you about that”, he muttered.

“Don’t mention it”, she lowered her eyes first so he didn’t feel too improper.

“...He has calmed down a bit, if you want to talk to him. I’m going to fetch something for his fever.”

“Alright”, she replied quietly.

Ducky waited for him to leave before getting up and inching her way towards the open door.

 

In the bedroom, it had been Wave the first to pull Fox into an awkward embrace and notice his trembling before the sobs started wracking his whole body.

“We’ve got you, vod. We’ve got you”, he murmured to him, holding him and gently rubbing his hand over his back in soothing motions.

He had cried openly after that, extremely grateful that the General wasn’t in the room. It was embarrassing enough that he was crying in front of his men, but doing it in front of his superior...

The next to step in had been Thire. Fox had actually tensed when he had seen it was him who approached after Wave stepped away to talk with Jek in quick whispers; expecting a reprieve from his previous lashing out. But Thire just dropped to his knees by the bed and held him as Wave had.

Fox whined; first in confusion, then in self-pity.

“I’m sorry...”

“I know, vod. I know”, he shushed him, patting his shoulder slightly. “I’ll never be Thorn”, he added after a few beats. “But I’ll be here doing my best to help you nonetheless.”

The downed Commander sobbed again, pulling his brother closer.

 

Ducky stepped shyly into the room. Jek nodded at her and stepped out, headed for the refresher. Rys was sitting on the bed, holding one of Fox’s hands. Sound and Thire stood a bit to the side, talking quietly among themselves but mostly letting Fox rest. They perked up when they saw Luna’s shadow and offered her a respectful nod, plus their permission to come closer. She walked up to them and looked at them expectantly.

“It seems he burned himself out”, Sound explained. “He should be fine with some rest, but we have sent Wave to pick up something to help him.”

Dani was just going to offer herself to assist in the meanwhile when Rys’ alarmed voice snapped their attention to him.

“No, no no no—”, he was chanting as he put his hands on Fox’s shoulders to keep him down.

“’ve work to do...”, the other mumbled, still trying to raise up on his elbows. But then all hands available were on him, and at that moment there was no way he could get past them.

He slumped back down, frowning deeply and even looking bothered.

“Paperwork?”, Dani asked, the stacks of datapads very present on her mind.

Fox took a moment to process her question and the meaning behind it, and then nodded slowly.

“I could help you with that!”, she piped up, and would have gone on but he interrupted her.

“No.”

“Why not?”, she asked, a bit taken aback and a bit offended.

“You wouldn’t do it—“, he had enough presence of mind to cut himself off.

“Right?”, she completed with a raised eyebrow.

Fox squirmed under her gaze, looking everywhere but her eyes.

Dani wanted to defend her paperwork-honour, but that was not the time nor the place to do it.

“...Bet I could do it well enough for your taste”, she chirped instead with a defying grin. “Tell you what: you unlock your pads for me, I read your finished reports and I write the incomplete ones as if I were you on my own pads. If you don’t like ‘em: no harm done; if you like ‘em: less work for you. What do you say?”

Fox just frowned at her excited smile. He had no idea how somebody could be looking forward to doing paperwork, even more when it wasn’t even their responsibility. But he was sick, and tired, and a bit stressed out to put it mildly; and it wouldn’t hurt if she tried, right? At least she would write the body of the reports and he could just rewrite it. That was going to be less work, right?

“Alright”, he sighed.

Before he prompted her, Dani sprang out of the room at a speed that was impossible for him to achieve in his current condition and came back with an enviable swiftness, turning on the lock screen of the pad she had picked and handing it to him. Fox extracted his hand from Rys’ and took it, squinting at the artificial light. He was just about to tap the password, but stopped with his finger hovering just above the screen.

“...It’s the same for all my pads”, he said.

After a moment of not knowing why he was telling her that for, her brain cells rebooted and she leaned to watch him enter the password. She memorized it with a discreet smile and gently took the tablet of him when he was done.

“Cool. Thanks”, she took a moment to direct her smile at him, and took his hand briefly to give a reassuring squeeze. “You rest now. I got this!”

And before he could say anything else, she left the room. The Guards could still see her through the open door as she dropped on Fox’s chair and started reading off the unlocked pad before leaving it on the table and picking up another from a different pile to check its contents.

“I should tell her about my sorting...”, the sick Commander murmured, trying to raise on his elbows again.

“I think she’s got it, vod”, Sound reassured him, seeing as Jek came out of the refresher and walked up to see what was she doing.

Ducky requested something of him and the Guard disappeared from sight for a moment, bringing her satchel. Her free hand disappeared inside of it and pulled back with a can. Without wasting a second, she cracked a cold one open with the boys and took a swig before offering it to him. Jek tried to refuse out of politeness, and the General seemed to insist, but she ended up leaving the canister on a spot on the desk and seemed to dive into an explanation of what was she doing. Jek gave an understanding nod and picked a pad out of the ‘to do’ pile.

Wave came back soon after, sparing a confused glance at the working pair before making his way to the others and offering a pill and a water pack to Fox.

“Cheers, brother”, he said jokingly, holding the items.

The other huffed, slowly but steadily climbing up to his elbows, and this time the others let him, thanks the Force!

He swallowed down the pill and just sat there for a while, eyes dulling as the storm of emotions kept ravaging inside him regardless of the fever.

Thire squeezed his shoulder gently.

“You should sleep”, he told him softly. “Do you want us to stay, or to go?”

 Fox lowered himself flat on his back, and sighed.

He had had enough of the loneliness.

“Stay...”

 

When he woke up, he was feeling better. Still tired and not healthy enough, but better. Wave was there, holding his hand. He smiled when Fox opened his eyes.

“Morning, Commander. Slept well?”

Surprisingly, yes. He nodded his reply and rubbed his eyes with his free hand, trying to get rid of the grit accumulated there. Wave loosened his grip on his hand, allowing him to pull it out if he wanted a respite.

“What time is it?”

“Nearly 08:00, sir.”

Wow. He hadn’t gotten that much sleep since... Ever. A full nine hours, give or take. Wow.

There were hushed voices coming from the main room of his quarters. They seemed to be punctual discussions or quick questions and checks. For a moment, Fox had no idea what that was about, until he realized that one of the voices wasn’t from a vod, and then remembered that General Luna was there too.

Actually, he was kinda surprised that she was still there. She could have left. Nine hours. In the late night and early morning. Huh.

The Commander sat up and swung his legs off the bed. Wave offered him a water pack. He gave an appreciative nod and took steady sips. He still wasn’t okay, and finally acknowledging that and knowing that now he had help took a lot of strain off of him.

“Can I get you something else?”, Wave asked gently.

The being careful around him was going to get old soon.

“Gotta use the ‘fresher”, he smirked, glancing at his brother through the corner of his eyes for his reaction.

Wave put his hands in the air in surrender, leaving the matter to him.

Fox chuckled and got to his feet, slowly but steadily making his way to the cracked open door. It swung open all the way when he prompted it, and had to squint at the light of the bigger room.

“Commander!”

“Hey, Fox.”

“Looking better, vod.”

As his eyes adjusted, he was able to take in the scene before him.

Rys was sitting on his chair, datapad resting on his lap as he greeted him. Thire was sitting on a corner of the desk, mindful of not knocking anything over as he balanced his tablet on a bended knee. Sound was sitting against the far wall, legs crossed with his own pad resting on them. Jek was just sitting in front of the desk, in a similar position to Sound. And General Luna was sitting against a leg of the desk, legs stretched out and holding her own datapad with both hands.

There was a ridiculous amount of empty soda cans laying about the available and nearer surfaces of the room.

Dani glanced up from her work, eyes glittering with the raw power of caffeine.

“Yo!”, she greeted with a weird smile. It was obvious that the apparent lack of sleep was taking a toll on her, but her voice was quite energetic. “We’re almost done here! Why don’t you take a shower? With any luck breakfast will be here by the time you get out! I’m starving.”

And she dove back to her work.

Fox had several questions, but he could feel the dried sweat all over his skin and a shower sounded like a blessing from above. So he picked his way through legs and bodies and treated himself to hot water.

The mentioned breakfast was not there yet, to Luna’s disappointment. She stared at the exit door with longing, making Fox think that maybe reg-borns just had zero tolerance to not sleeping and she was delirious.

“Anyways”, she suddenly snapped, turning to him and sounding very lucid. “We only have two ‘pads left on the ‘to do’ stack. You can check our finished ones if you’d like”, she offered, passing him one.

Rys stood up so he could sit and be more rested. The Commander had been about to refuse, but thought better of it and accepted.

“Thire wrote the text’s body”, Ducky ranted on. “Jek was first beta reader, Rys checked references and Sound was final corrector.”

Fox wasn’t really listening, too engrossed on reading the report. For a long moment, he thought they were messing with him: that paperwork was obviously done by himself... He didn’t remember doing it, but maybe that had been the fever—And then his brain noticed that she hadn’t listed her role.

“...And you?”, he dared to ask, turning slowly to Dani.

She gave him a shit-eating grin.

“I copied your linguistic tics and applied them.”

Fox’s jaw dropped.

“I love your juggling to avoid saying ‘although’ too often, it’s very cute!”, she giggled, and that had been enough to snap the leader of the Coruscant Guard out of his stupor, but then the door’s buzz went off.

“It must be breakfast! I’ll get it!”, she chirped, and zoomed away before anyone could react.

Fox stretched his arm out too late to stop her. He had no idea who was at the door, but there was no way it was—

“Breakfast’s here!!!”, Luna cheered from the door, and reappeared with an armful of full paper bags. Behind her trailed Aleluia and an older brother, both also carrying bags.

The smell was _PURE BLISS_.

The other Guards hurried to clean the desk and leave everything on the floor in a neat order to put back once they were done while the former three deposited their precious cargo on the table. Without wasting a second, they ripped the packages open.

PASTRIES. _RECENTLY BAKED PASTRIES_ , lying right in their reach and smelling like paradise, some coated in sugar or glittering syrup or covered in whipped cream and—

“Feel free to help yourselves”, the General declared, sitting only a leg at the edge of the desk and pulling Aleluia up to sit on it as she picked something resembling a doughnut for herself while her son snatched a fruit flavoured biscuit and the other trooper took a dark brown bagel. “These are Aleluia and Pedal, by the way”, she introduced them, already munching on her breakfast.

Not that really mattered, since the Guards seemed too entranced with the food they were bringing to their mouths to care. The smell must have reached Wave because he came out of the room and made a beeline for the pastries, apparently too busy to feel uncomfortable by Dani’s presence.

“You could have called me”, Pedal told her in between chews, “I would have come to take you here.”

“I know”, she replied in the same manner. “And that’s why I didn’t. It was your free night!”

“By the way”, Aleluia piped up. “I think grandma Yaddle is a bit pissed at you for leaving her waiting in the speeder for five hours before she decided to head back to the Temple.”

Dani’s eyes went wide in realisation.

“OH. MY GOD. Aw shhhhhh—“, she repressed the word she had been about to say, staring into Aleluia’s eyes, who was looking back at her with narrowed eyes, knowing she had been about to say a swearword, “—shhhould have remembered to tell her! Totally slipped my mind. I’ll call her and apologise when we’re done here.”

Aleluia squinted harder at her, but her nervous smile made him snort loudly and end up sputtering. Dani laughed at his reaction and patted his back reassuringly. She diverted her attention from him to discover that the Guards were staring at them.

She was about to try to explain, but she was beaten to it.

“Hi, my name is Aleluia! It’s nice to meet you, ori’vod’e”, he introduced himself respectfully, offering a hand to shake like Ducky usually did.

The hand in question was very closely observed for a good handful of seconds.

“It’s nice to meet you, vod’ika. I’m Rys”, he was the first to react and clasp his slim arm with a Mandalorian handshake, much to Aleluia’s surprise.

“I’m Sound!”

“The name’s Wave.”

“Jek.”

“I’m Thire.”

“Fox”, the Commander said solemnly, also clasping Aleluia’s arm. Leaving his title out of his introduction seemed like a conscious choice.

“Commander Fox”, Aleluia knew nonetheless. “Are you the friend that needed help?”

He seemed taken aback by the direct question, but there seemed to be no ill-intent in the boy’s words.

“I guess I am, yeah.”

“Yeah, you are not looking that good”, he observed with a tilt of his head. “Are you feeling better, though?”

“Yes. Yes, I am”, Fox replied despite the residual exhaustion clinging to him. The shower and the pastries had worked more wonders that the pill Wave brought him last night.

Probably not, but it was a comforting thought to have.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that”, Aleluia smiled, and damn; it had been a long time since someone had smiled at him that way...

He then turned to his mother, whose head was bobbing with sleepiness.

“...Guess you are in no shape to go to the botanical greenhouse, are you?”

“Just... give me time to take a nap and we’ll go”, she promised, stifling a yawn.

Aleluia sighed.

“Let’s go then”, he said, hopping off her leg and walking a few steps to the door before turning around to wait for her and Pedal.

Dani turned to the Guards, scratching an itchy spot somewhere among her hair.

“If I’m not needed here anymore?”, she left in the air.

She couldn’t think of anything else she could help with: Fox was looking and feeling better and all the paperwork was done, and apparently, approved by him.

“Luna”, the Commander started slowly. “You just forged my reports.”

She blinked at him, tired and confused for a moment.

“Who? Me? No.”

He pulled up one of the reports written in their communal effort.

“You made it look like I wrote this—”

“That’s not forging. It would be forging if I had copied your signature. Which I didn’t. None of us did. Also: remember to sign the reports. Bye.”

And she turned around, picked Aleluia up and lmade to leave with Pedal chuckling behind.

“...What now?”, asked Jek.

“Now we go back to work.”

“You ain’t going back to work”, Wave and Dani called out at the same time as she halted in her steps.

“And what am I supposed to say? ‘I can’t go to work today because I’m sad’?”, he said pitifully.

“Actually, you’re probably depressed. Surely grieving”, Dani droned out, but ended up shrugging as a mischievous smile grew on her face. “Just say you have explosive diarrhoea.”

 

“I can’t say that”, Fox repeated yet again, his comm resting on the desk in front of him. “I can’t, I can’t! I have a reputation to uphold!”

“You could really use another day to rest, vod”, Thire nudged softly.

“I can’t”, he shook his head again, despite it being held between his hands with his elbows resting on the desk.

Finally the comm buzzed, the Chancellor’s voice coming from it.

“Commander Fox? Where are you? I have to be escorted to a private meeting in ten minu—“

Before he could end the sentence, Wave snatched the comm off.

“Sir, I’m sorry, but Commander Fox is... indisposed”, he started, walking away from the group so they couldn’t stop him.

“Indisposed? Our dear Commander? How can that be?”

“No. NO, Wave, don’t say it...!”, Fox snarled.

“Explosive diarrhoea, sir.”

“Oh my.”

“I’ll kill you you bastard—“

Thire hurried to cover Fox’s mouth.

“Well, then, I hope you can take on the job, Captain Wave.”

“Will do, sir. I’ll be there in less than five.”

“Very well, Captain.”

And he hung up.

“You piece of shit—”

“I just got you a free day, vod”, he said, tossing his comm at him. “Enjoy it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 24th of March is my birthday and I'll be turning 21  
> I'm saying this because on my birthday I like sharing things: a lunch, a cool present... In this case, I want to give you a chapter of this fic, but becuse of uni work, exams, suspended classes and all I don't know if I'll be able to post anything close to the date.  
> As you may have observed, I'm putting the last pieces in place so I can go on with my final plan *cough cough* saving Fives *cough cough*. There's still some important chapters left, but only 6-7 chapters remain before the story ends.  
> Thank you very much to everyone for reading, and hope you keep enjoying 'til the very end!!!


	47. The Ones Left Behind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's quarantined but has an online exam in three days

Dani made sure Ian and Dogma knew she was taking some time to herself, locked the door to her room, tidied up a bit (that meaning that she shoved her clothes in the closet and pushed everything else out of sight), checked that she had locked the door, went to pee, checked the door again, checked her phone, went to sit on her chair, checked her phone again, pulled Grey on her lap, checked the door _again_ and then; she plugged her phone into the holoprojector and made the call.

It connected almost immediately.

“—o, _I_ take the seat!”

The image appeared, Boba roughly trying to push Ponds out of the camera view. He succeeded and plopped down on what probably the pilot’s chair.  Fett looked very satisfied with his victory, until he realised Ducky was staring with an amused grin and then made an attempt to sober up.

Ponds reappeared, leaning on the side of the backrest of the chair that wasn’t occupied by Steer and giving the boy a somehow fond scowl with a shake of his head before turning his attention to Dani.

“General”, he greeted with a nod.

“Looking good, Ponds”, she smiled. “You too, Steer. Cool armours, by the way”, she added, noticing the different shape and abundant colour of some of the protection covering them. More bounty-hunter-looking than standard GAR armour, that was for sure. “Hey Boba. I’m keeping my part of the deal”, she smirked, lifting Grey so she could be seen clearly.

Boba’s eyes lighted up at the side of the loth cat, a sincere smile appearing on his face.

“Well, I didn’t expect less”, he said, pulling up his professional persona. “We’ll give you the gathered intel, then.”

“Something juicy?”, she asked, leaning her head on her intertwined hands; more interested in assessing Boba’s emotional state than knowing what was going on around the underworld.

“Extremely!”, Steer nodded enthusiastically. “We have a lead on a Sith!”

Ducky perked up. She hadn’t involved herself much in the Jedi-Sith affair, apart from fighting Grievous and hating Ventress very very very very much despite having never encountered her (Dani gave zero fucks: if she ever crossed paths with that woman she was going to gut her for hurting Ian); so she had conflicted feelings about this. She didn’t believe Sith should be persecuted just for being Sith, but if it was Dooku or some other General, that could cause repercussions and, luckily, a quick end to the war.

“You know what Sith?”, she finally asked.

“Maul”, Boba answered.

The name was distantly familiar, but she didn’t recall.

“Male Zabrak? Went on a Jedi-killing-spree? Seems to be setting up some sort of crime empire? Killed the Duchess of Mandalore?”, Ponds offered.

The only thing that came to mind was Cody confiding her that Kenobi had been blue since the Duchess had been assassinated.

_Oh my god they were roommates_

“So... what’s the idea? If there’s an idea”, she asked, honestly not knowing what she could do with that. Bring him to Republic justice? Maybe it would make Obi-Wan happier and in turn make Cody happier. It could also be a good chance to get the Sith version of the facts. Yeah, that was a good idea! “Know your enemy...”, she muttered.

“What?”, Boba asked.

“We thought you could pass the intel to the Jedi Temple if you see it fit, General.”

“No. No, I don’t think I will”, she chuckled. “I will check it out personally. Test de waters a bit”, she added to reassure them.

“You shouldn’t go alone”, Steer spoke up immediately, a worried frown on his face. “The Sith are powerful and shameless in the use of that power. If he can kill you with one strike, he will.”

“I’m hoping that he likes talkin’ more than slashin’”, Dani shrugged. “But I’ll keep that in mind and at the very least make sure I have a quick escape if needed. Thanks, Steer.”

The ex-naval officer nodded, pleased.

“You have his coordinates, then?”, Ducky prompted.

“We do”, Boba confirmed, but made no move to send them. Dani tilted her head in mild confusion.

“Sir, there’s... something else”, Ponds started, rubbing his nape.

“Yeah?”

“More like _someone_ else”, the young Fett mused, crossing his arms in a semi-pout, more as if he were trying to put on an act rather to let know that he was okay with whatever was going on.

Ponds cleared his throat, and another person came forth and into the camera’s range.

Despite being _very_ used to that face, she still jerked a bit in surprise.

“CC-5576-39, Captain Gregor reporting for duty, sir!”, the newcomer saluted.

“Are you okay?!”, Ducky blurted out, eyes wide in alarm as she took notice of the bacta patches scattered around the uncovered skin of his neck and arm.

The commando startled, totally caught off guard.

“I, uh, yessir! Just a bit scorched, that’s all.”

“We pulled him out of an exploding space port on Abafar”, Steer explained.

“Ah”, she hummed, relaxing at their answers. Gregor’s voice had sounded fine, after all. “I’m Dani! It’s nice to meet you”, she offered a sincere smile, strengthened by the relief of knowing that the injured man was okay.

“I want a raise”, Boba piped up, arms still crossed.

Luna levelled him with an unimpressed stare.

“Boba, I am once again asking you to do things with a different motivation than money.”

“What’s next? Not getting paid?”, he huffed and turned his head to not look at her, but there was no bite to it.

Dani glanced at Ponds, who just shook his head with a warm smile.

_Heh. Ponds. More like Fond_

Steer did chuckle audibly, earning a quick smack to the arm from the boy.

“Boba, be nice!”, she scolded before she could contain herself. She couldn’t help it. Once a mom, always a mom; she guessed.

Fett rose an incredulous eyebrow at her, and Dani grimaced at her mistake.

“Sorry, sorry. That came out on its own. Sorry”, she smiled apologetically.

Meanwhile, Gregor had gathered the courage to clear his throat loudly.

Ducky wasn’t especially startled by the action, but felt ashamed when she realized she had ignored the Captain.

“What are your orders, sir?”, he requested politely.

“Uh”, she replied very eloquently. Orders. She wasn’t supposed to be giving orders now. She just had wanted to check on Boba and company... “That’ll depend on what you want to do, Captain.”

“Sir?”, he asked with a confused tilt of his head.

“Would do you _want_ to do?”, she shrugged.

“I—“, Gregor looked away for a moment, half wondering if that was some kind of test. “Fight for the Republic, sir.”

Dani cringed internally at that. Fucking Republic, fucking loyalty class and fucking bunch of dutiful, kind-hearted men!

“I guess I could find you a safe way back into the GAR, if you want to”, she forced herself to say; because she absolutely didn’t want to do that; but if it was what Gregor chose, she couldn’t keep him from it.

Or could she...?

“How long have you been missing from the army?”, she asked carefully.

“I’m... not sure, General. Since the Battle of Sarrish.”

Ducky glanced at Ponds and Steer for reference.

“That was over a year ago”, the ex-Commander supplied.

“Uf”, Luna frowned, working on her act.

“What?”, Gregor prompted when she just kept looking around uncomfortably.

“That’s... kinda a long time to be away. I don’t want to scare you, but the possibility that you’ll be charged with desertion is there”, she explained, letting worry seep into her expression. Not that it was hard: she was genuinely concerned about that.

“But...! If I would be returning to active duty—!”

“I know, I know”, she tried to quiet him down. “I’m just telling what I know, man. I’m Head of Internal Affairs, and I’ve read plenty of reports of troopers who returned and were immediately send to trial just so anyone else would get any ideas...”

She shook her head, giving away that she wasn’t able to do much about it. Which was a lie, because she had Prophet tracking down all those kinds of reports and making calls pulling an: _don’t be a fucking asshole, we’re short on troopers as it is and you want to decommission the one that came back???? You ignorant slut. Now move: we’re gay_

Regardless, it looked like she had managed to instigate doubt in Gregor. A part of her was excited at the deception working and the other was feeling too guilty to breath and just wanted her to come clean.

Gregor and the other adult clones looked as uncomfortable as she felt. Boba was frowning too, his gaze distant as if he stared at Grey’s soul.

“Stay here”, he said, to the great surprise of everyone present. He swivelled his chair to look directly at him as the commando blinked down in astonishment. “There’s no chance that we would sell you out, and we’re still contributing to help the Republic! Just... from outside the army. Right, Luna?”

“Right”, she replied on reflex, still dumbfounded with Boba’s unexpected contribution.

Fett turned back to Gregor after he got his employer’s confirmation, looking up at the commando with bright eyes.

Gregor might not remember, but there were great chances that he had met Jango while training. And Boba was not so disposed to let that faint connection go.

“I... wouldn’t want to impose...”, was his reply as he swept a hand over his hair nervously.

“Well, the boss just invited you”, Steer shrugged with a smile.

“We’ll be glad to have you, vod”, Ponds added, patting his back loudly.

“Ouch!”, Gregor grimaced.

“Aw, _osik!_ Sorry!”

The Captain laughed good-naturally, setting Dani at ease as he unknowingly eased the turmoil inside her.

“Don’t worry, guys. I’ve had worse”, he chuckled. He then straightened, bringing his attention back to the General.

“Sir.”

“You’ll be staying with them, then?”, she asked softly.

“If you’ll have me, sir”, he nodded.

“This... isn’t really about me”, she flashed a lopsided smile. “But of course _we_ ’ll have you.”

 

Boba finally sent her the intel, with a final warning from the three adult clones to not go alone and not underestimate Maul for even a millisecond, and then the call ended. Dani unplugged the phone from the holoprojector and tipped a number, bringing the device to her head.

“Yes?”

“Venus: am I a bad person?”

“Uh. Why? What did you do?”

“A _tito_ wanted to come back to the army, but I manipulated and lied to him so he would stay away.”

“Well, on the good side: he is safe. Or safer that he would be here, I guess. On the bad side: you are not entitled to people’s choices, you do _not_ know what’s better for somebody else.”

“I know! That’s why I feel like shit!”

“And that’s good! It means you are aware you did something wrong! Do you feel sorry about it?”

“Yes”, Ducky replied, voice sounding utterly crestfallen.

“That’s great! You’ll be able to apologize to him wholeheartedly once all this ends.”

“What if he doesn’t forgive me?”, she whined.

“I’m sorry to say that, but you already know the answer.”

“I’ll have to deal with that”, the General sighed tiredly.

“That’s right. Are you feeling a bit better after talking about it?”

“Yeah. Yes, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I’m a bit busy now, but feel free to call again if you need to chat, alright?”

“Alright. Thanks, Venus.”

“You got it”, she could hear the smile in her voice before her aunt hung up.

Dani stared at the screen of her phone for a long moment. Venus really had a way with words and feelings. Maybe she would have had to send _her_ to get psychologist training. But it could also be that Venus was biased regarding Dani...

“Raven: am I a bad person?”

“Why? What did you do?”

 

She hadn’t been walking around the underworld in a long, long time. In fact, that could possibly be considered the first time, since she hadn’t wandered willingly into it when she first arrived at the lower levels of Coruscant.

The presences around her weren’t much of a concern, though: her training in combat and the Force reassured her of her safety.

That, and Ian with his sniper rifle settled on a motel room a couple of blocks away, ready to headshot anyone that dared try to chase Dani out of the cantina she was entering. She had been cloaking her Force-signal since before they entered atmosphere, passing for a non Force-sensitive. Maul’s presence was also dissimulated; she probably wouldn’t have noticed him if Boba’s intel didn’t point them straight at him. Inside the bar, Shiver was sitting in a far away corner. He pointed at a side with his head when he saw her, disguising it as rubbing at a kink on his neck. Dani blinked to look where he had pointed in a natural way, and wandered among the busy local for a moment.

She would have said that, conveniently, there was a free stool right next to Maul, but in second thought it seemed as if the people around him were maintaining a strict distance of personal space.

_Ah, shit, here I go..._

She invaded said space, resting her arms on the table and ordering a soda without sparing a glance at the Sith that was trying to glare daggers through her left ear. Dani forced herself to stay oblivious of the ugly look until the bartender brought her her drink, took a small sip, and then turned to him with the most innocent look she could muster, blinking at him as if she just realized that he was there.

Her look changed to a one of genuine awe as she took in his face.

“Oh, wow!”, she let out before he could growl at her. Maul blinked, jerking backwards minutely, disconcerted at her reaction. “Oh, sorry!”, she apologised, half-hiding her face behind a hand and looking away for a moment.

Yeah, the naive act seemed like a good enough choice at the moment.

“It’s just... Your skin pattern is breath-taking!”, she giggled, returning to her drink with an impression of a smile on her face.

Maul blinked yet again, frozen in shock for a couple seconds more before he looked her up and down critically.

“I am not interested in your services, Miss”, he huffed, turning forwards.

Ducky raised an eyebrow at him.

“Good. ‘Cause I ain’t offering anything”, she was about to scoff, but thought that that wasn’t fair to sex workers and she should do a personal-bias-check soon. Her hesitation led to her response having a hurt tone.

Maul twitched for a moment, but did not apologize.

“I’m Ducky, by the way.”

“Hmph.”

“Nice talk. You know: I’m usually the kind that listens instead of do the talking, but next to you I might as well be a parrot”, she laughed to herself.

“What do you want, woman?”, he grumbled, still not meeting her eyes.

“You look like an interesting person. Have a story that you would like to share?”, she leaned forwards on the table to lean her head on a hand, but not getting closer to him.

He turned his eyes at her, squinting suspiciously.

“If you are a spy, you are doing horribly.”

“Legit reason why I’m not one”, she huffed a laugh.

Maul also hummed, with the closest thing to amusement she thought she would ever be able to steal from him.

“You do not want to mingle with me, woman”, he let the annoyance he felt sip into his voice.

“Why not?”, she asked, willingly careless.

“Do you not know where you are? Where you sit?”, he spat slowly, menacingly; and Dani accordingly leaned back, hunching a bit on herself. She let her gaze flicker to a couple of undetermined spots, as if she were trying to come up with an answer good enough.

“Would you believe me if I said no?”, she piped up with a mischievous smile before he could continue. She had to find a way to direct the conversation where she wanted to, after all. “I’m new around here. Guess you already noticed that...”, she scratched the back of her head meekly.

Maul rose an eyebrow at that. Only fools were that open about vulnerabilities and weaknesses around this parts... Perhaps he could talk to her a bit. Amuse himself with her before her naiveté got her killed.

“Have you ever heard of Obi Wan Kenobi?”, he asked, eyes distant as rage started blazing in them.

“The name is vaguely familiar...?”

“He ruined my life!”, he slammed his fist on the table, making the whole bar pause on their conversations.

Dani didn’t move an inch: a clear signal for Shiver to stay put.

He glared at the room and immediately everybody turned away, back to their affairs. When Maul turned back to Dani, she was leaning on her elbows, slurping from the straw on her soda and looking up at him with attentive, wide eyes.

“What did he do?”, she prompted him when he just stared at her with mild cluelessness.

“Cut me in half, for starters!”, he growled, gesturing below his waist.

“Ooooooooowwwwwww maaaaaaaaaan!!!”, she winced sympathetically. “That must have HURT!”

“The pain I could bear”, he snarled, eyes fixed on the table before him. “The isolation, the madness; that I could bear! What I _can’t_ swallow is him robbing me of the glory I was destined for!”

He punched the table again, but this time nobody turned to peek.

“What kind of glory?”, she asked, nose hidden inside her cup.

“Power”, he replied immediately, his fiery eyes trying to drill into hers just to encounter an unmovable barrier of earth.

“Power to do what?”

“To rule!!!”

“And do what?”

He narrowed his eyes, looking at her as if she were dumb. Ducky kept an unimpressed stare. Maul scoffed at what he perceived as pure ignorance and slight petulance and shook his head before a dangerous grin spread over his features.

“To _rule_ like a Sith”, he purred, low and threatening.

_Okay here we go_

“What’s a Sith?”, she chirped, and took another slurp of her soda.

Maul froze completely, jaw slack as he searched her eyes desperately for a sign that it was a joke. He found none, and _Oh my god I’m such a dumbass there’s no way that’s plausible he’s gonna stick his ‘saber up my ass—_

“The Sith wield the true power of the Force”, he said, voice so strangely serene that it gave Dani chills. He was still studying, now with a different interest in his eyes.

“And how do they do that?”, she pressed more carefully. Her situation was precarious as it was; she knew she was on thin ice.

“Fear. Rage. The true fuel for power!”, he fisted his hand in front of him and stared at it for a long moment before letting out a breath, his eyes flickering to her. “Don’t you have something like that? A pain, a fury so deep and hot that it burns in and out of you, until you are able to the what others had thought unthinkable?!”, he raised his voice, pumped up by what he must thought was a pep talk.

It sounded more like a misguided therapist to Dani.

“Well”, she shrugged, the unexpected swell of emotions that came and went rearing its head. “My father left me behind when I was a kid. Haven’t seen him in more than ten years. And then my mother died, and I was alone...”

“Yes! And that hurts, right? It burns! A Sith would use that anger to gain power! Maybe you would make a decent apprentice, if you were a Force-user. Which you are not”, he smirked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Ducky wasn’t really looking at him, eyes lost among the bubbles of her drink.

“But I’m not angry”, she mused, barely audible in the midst of the noises of the busy bar. “I’m sad.”

“It will pass”, Maul dismissed her with a swipe of his hand. “That weakness it’s just the step before the strength needed.”

“To do what?”

“Get vengeance!”, the Zabrak exploded, hands going to the air in desperation. On the ones who hurt you!”

“Maybe I don’t want to spend my life being driven by grief and anger. By what I can’t have”, she rose her head, staring at Maul’s eyes with a different kind of fire in her own. “Maybe the real father is the uncles you meet along the way”, she smirked.

He tilted his head at that, entirely confused. Ducky crossed her ankles behind the stool she was sitting on and clapped her feet together twice: the signal so Shiver would take his leave.

Maul was about to say something.

“I’m surely not your mother”, she interrupted him, standing up and tossing a couple coins on the counter. “But I would suggest you abandon whatever revenge you are pursuing and instead... Search something that _really_ fills the void.”

She walked away before he could snarl his reply at her. She could feel his eyes trying to burn a hole through her head. She huffed a smirk, checked that Shiver was out and deep into the crowd and Ian was still safe in hi nest.

And for the briefest of seconds, she turned to make eye contact and let her Force-signature show.

_You dumbass. You absolute fool_

By the time Maul barrelled out of the bar, she was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got stuck at some scenes in this chapter and I don't really vibe with Maul, so... Sorry if this chapter is weird. Not my best work but I rather move on


	48. The Central Dogma of Biology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starring Depa Billaba, Caleb Dume, Commander Grey, Captain Styles and company

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: CPR ahead, mentions of pneumonia
> 
> The central dogma of biology is a real thing! And just a very fancy way of asking oneself what molecule is the one that holds genetic information when it was still being discovered. There were three candidates:  
> -DNA  
> -RNA  
> -Proteins  
> DNA gets transcripted into RNA, and RNA gets translated into proteins. DNA and RNA can duplicate themselves, and some RNAs can reverse-transcript themselves into DNA  
> The answer to the question is DNA, at least in most eukaryotic organisms, because there are viruses and other organisms who only have RNA (like coronavirus, since we are at it).  
> It is the general consensus that RNA must have been the first molecule to hold genetic information, since it can replicate itself and catalyse reactions, while not being especially good at any of them. Meanwhile, DNA is very good at storaging information, and proteins are very good at catalyzing reactions.
> 
> I just thought: inspired on that Fuck, Marry, Kill game, but instead with DNA, RNA or Protein, applied to Star Wars trinities.  
> Maybe it's a dumb idea but I wanted to share and see what you guys think if you feel up to playing in the comments.
> 
> Hope I didn't bore you with the science! Enjoy this long-ass chapter

“At ease, Commander Grey”, Depa said softly, watching her most trusted men pace restlessly around the snow.

It was a white, white world. Not in the same way as the hallways on Kamino: this white was interrupted by the colossal forests, which created dry splotches of ground safe from the permanent wetness of snow. Mountains were abundant, but not as much as to make the terrain difficult to navigate. The stillness of the air was entrancing, yet unnerving at the thought that it would be replaced by blaster fire at some point; at the moment only disturbed by the troops’ footsteps. The sound in itself was soothing, too; but the nervous protectiveness emanating from her Commander and Captain, not so much.

“I just... have a bad feeling about this, ma’am”, Grey grumbled from inside his cold-gear armour. “Did they _have_ to send the 0th as support? They are Internal Affairs! What if they are out to get you for what happened on Haruun Kal?”

“I doubt that”, Billaba hummed. Her fingers went to scratch her chin but found a thick scarf in the way. She scratched through it anyways. “I’ve heard good things about Luna. And if she pries too much, we’ll just set our boundaries and deal with whatever comes.”

The men seemed appeased by her answer. Their pacing lowered considerably, but moving was still preferable than standing stock still in the chill, despite being in a sunny spot.

“But would they be able to call you out on it? I mean: it was a long time ago! And nothing that you could have done could have changed the outcome of that battle!”, Caleb jumped up in defence of his Master.

“I could have retreated”, Depa murmured sorrowfully.

Styles and Soot were ready to protest at that, but a comm cracked to life.

“General Billaba?”, a voice asked.

“General Luna?”, she asked in return, lifting the wristcomm closer to her mouth.

“Yes! Just to warn you that we are arriving. Coming from the south.”

“ETA?”

“What? No, as in, we’re here _now_.”

They all turned in unison towards the pointed direction.

Ghostly figures appeared from within the forest behind them, like an invoked army of fae. Not a single one of them sported the black of the 0th: instead, they had pained their snow-gear with the lightest of blues, giving the impression that their patterns and marks were shadows projected by the snow around them. They even had to _squint_ to make out the almost invisible paintings.

Depa and her men scanned the incoming crowd. At first glance, nobody stood out: despite the different proportion of shades, everyone was pretty much the same. Then the newcomers started to spread out, going to speak to the clones standing guard at the outskirts of the camp or taking new positions until just a small group made their way to them. Commander Ian was ultimately easy to recognise for anyone who had done research on him, with his large rifle slung over a shoulder. On his left and barely half a step ahead, was a slightly shorter figure, flanked by a figure that proudly sported a Captain badge.

“General Luna”, Depa prompted.

Her helmet tipped and she froze for a moment, a flash of a brief scare followed by a sense of awkwardness and a taste of an old sorrow left in the air for the Jedi Master and her Padawan to feel. They both blinked, unaccustomed to such displays coming from someone trained on the Force and how to keep a hold of it.

Luna also seemed self-conscious about it, fidgeting for a moment on her feet.

It had been a complex communication between the Force-users, but the troopers were completely oblivious to it. The only thing they saw was that there was tension among the Generals, and immediately they took protective positions. That was enough to snap each leader out of it.

“At ease”, Depa said, making a placating gesture towards her men.

“It’s alright, guys!”, Caleb was quick to reassure them. “It’s just—A Jedi thing happened, but it’s not bad.”

“It’s okay”, Dani was telling her own troops. “I slipped and projected on them without warning, that’s why we all froze.”

The 0thers stood down at her words. If there had been a threat, Ducky would have used the code word.

“I’m sorry about that”, she went on, apologizing directly to Depa. “It’s just—Sorry. It doesn’t matter”, she shook her head, before pulling out her helmet. “I’m Dani Luna. It’s nice meeting you”, she tucked her helmet under her arm and offered a hand.

The Jedi politely ignored the sadness in the young General’s eyes.

“I am Master Depa Billaba”, she introduced herself, shaking her hand. “This is my Padawan, Caleb Dume”, she gestured to him.

The boy was looking up at her with wide eyes. She could feel the questions boiling inside his brain, and was grateful that he wasn’t spitting them now. Ducky offered her hand to him too.

“A wee Jedi”, she said under her breath.

Caleb squinted at her.

“What does ‘wee’ mean? I hope it doesn’t mean kid!”

“It doesn’t”, she grinned, and it wasn’t a lie.

“These are Commander Grey”, Depa continued. He simply nodded, but Dani took half a step in his direction so they could shake hands too. “Captain Styles, Sergeant Soot, Corporal Big-Mouth and Trooper Stance.”

She greeted all of them in the same manner.

“They are: Commander Ian, Captain Dogma, CMO Shades, Sergeant Shiver and Sergeant Bubble”, she introduced them. It still left a strange aftertaste, to not let them introduce themselves; but Dogma had confided to her than actually listening to a reg-born CO acknowledge their troops by their names usually put most clones at ease.

“We’ll have time to get acquainted”, Depa offered. “We should set up camp now that there’s still light; unless you planned on trekking during the night, General Luna.”

“The intel centre is not going to outrun us”, she shrugged with an amused smirk.

The Jedi Master had a pleased smile under her scarf. Despite the initial bump, General Luna seemed like a mindful person so far. The younger was just putting her helmet back on when a snowball collided right against her neck and lower jaw.

Dani sucked in a tight gasp before screeching at the unexpected, unforgiving sting of the cold against her skin. All heads turned to the culprit.

“Uh...”, Laa’ka hummed, frozen in his throwing pose. “Sorry! I thought you were done...!”

“I’ll end you! I’ll kriffing end you if you throw another ball at someone who’s unprotected!”, Shades hollered with a threatening pointing finger.

By that time, though, Ducky was already half-way to where the ARC still stood. Reacting too late, Laa’ka tried to turn and run, but Dani was already looping her arms around him and supplexing him into the snow, burring his helmet and neck into the thick snow. She rolled onto her stomach, contemplating her doing for a moment before Laa’ka’s legs started flailing and Luna started laughing in earnest. When he attempted to extract himself from the snow his helmet was left behind and he had to dig it out.

“Alright, alright! We’re in peace now, aren’t we?”, he tried to sound annoyed, but was smiling too much for it to make effect.

“We are”, Dani agreed, distractedly playing with the snow under her fingers before she seemed to remember that it wasn’t just the 0th out there, and despite the novelty that snow was for her, she couldn’t just drop everything at any moment for the sake of her curiosity and fun.

She stood up with an agile jump and offered a hand to Laa’ka to help him up too before making her way where the COs still stood to pick up the backpack she had dropped to make her dash to Laa’ka.

“So”, she cleared her throat, jamming her helmet on. “You’ve found a nice spot?”

 

They parted ways to set up camp. There was no rush in it: plenty of time and a more than enough healthy distance between them and the Separatist base they were sent to raid.

That also meant plenty of time to get distracted with the snow and explore a bit. Depa’s battalion seemed wary around them, but the 0th had long learned that the best way to battle distrust was by don’t minding it and acting natural. So before the sunset, Dani and Moss scurried off to search for, well; moss. Soon enough Hock, Shiver and Dogma went to the edge of the forest to _have some contact with the snow_ since they had little experience with it. Ducky also joined them. She was, in fact, the one that had never seen snow before. She had been vibrating with excitement when they jumped down of the gunships and was _still_ having a field day with it.

She was quick to change her mind when the sun set and the chill tried to pierce through her heated armour. Her friends noticed her badly conceived shivers and returned to camp, where several heaters were placed around instead of fires. It still felt weird for Dani to have just the heaters scattered all around. A part of her mind kept insisting that fire was the correct answer to the cold night, but it was wrong: fire would make smoke and it could give away their position, and keeping a fire going might cost them more effort and energy than just using the heaters if those were good enough.

She was so lost in thought, eyes fixed on the device, that she hadn’t noticed who was sitting around the substitute of a campfire.

“Dani?”, Ian asked, his voice carrying an undertone of amusement.

The General startled like a cat who just saw the cucumber that had been placed behind it, turning to him.

“WHAT!! Uh, sorry, I was—”

“Spacing out like a pro”, Apollo nodded.

“Busted”, she shrugged and took off her helmet.

“Helmet hair”, Venus piped up from behind her, ruffling her hair wildly before going on her way.

“Thanks!”, she called after her before sighing and plopping down next to Ian.

“So, how was the snow?”, the Commander nudged her.

“Cool!”, she replied, fast in her enthusiasm, and realized too late the joke-potential of the question.

She laughed at her unintended pun while everybody who had heard the exchanging snickered or groaned. Ian was snickering, so that was always a win.

“No, really! I like it. It’s so fluffy but can be so compact! Very interesting. Very fun. Wet and cold, too.”

“Duh. It’s snow”, Apollo shrugged.

It earned him a slight shove from Shades.

“What? I didn’t mean to offend!”, he put his hands in the air, looking around for signs that anybody had gotten angry.

“And you didn’t”, Dani reassured him. “It _can_ be read as if you were downplaying something that makes me excited, but I know you didn’t mean it that way.”

“See?”, Apollo playfully shoved back the CMO, but after took a moment to offer Ducky a brief, comfortable smile.

“All set up well?”, she asked Ian.

“We’re all as comfortable as we can be”, the sniper nodded, busing himself with a ration bar. He was about to take a bite, but seemed to remember something and aborted the motion to look at her with a somewhat worried stare. “Hey, Dani?”

“Yeah?”, she encouraged him, scooting a bit closer to the heater and hugging her legs close to her body.

“What happened before? When we met Billaba and Dume?”

Ducky immediately tensed, eyes wide in distress before she cringed, sending him a pleading look of _please don’t make me talk about it because I’m barely holding it together and if I speak it out I will cry_ , which only made the worry in Ian’s eyes intensify, which made Shades pick up on the situation and Apollo pick up on Shades’ alertness and if this went on in less than five minutes all the 0th would be glancing at each other and asking what was going on—

“General Luna.”

From all people, it was Depa who called her from barely two meters away. Dani snapped her head towards her, looking up with wide eyes.

“My apologies, I didn’t mean to startle you...”

She didn’t reply, too busy swallowing down her nerves.

“Caleb and I were wondering if you would like to join us for our katas”, she offered, gesturing lightly to her wide-eyed Padawan.

“I—uh—”, she barely managed to mutter.

A gentle push on her back grounded her and she turned, breathless, to meet Ian’s reassuring eyes.

“It’ll be her pleasure, ma’am”, he said with politeness directed to the Jedi and light teasing directed to Dani.

She didn’t know what he thought was going on, but she wished he would shut up.

Ducky closed her eyes and took a deep breath to steady herself. It was easier like that: sensing Billaba, not _seeing_ her.

“Come on, sir. You are a bit rusty with your ‘saber”, Venus chimed, appearing out of nowhere to plop down beside Ian, very pointedly pushing her to go so she could teach her whatever the Jedi Master was offering.

“Alright, alright”, the General rolled her eyes, now calmer. Her gaze was carefully neutral as she turned to look at Depa’s freckles. “Let’s go.”

With that, the Force-users walked away, guided by the light of their lightsabers.

“...You made her uncomfortable”, Shades told Ian, voice grave.

The Commander’s mouth twitched at that. Shades’ protectiveness of Dani was legendary within the 0th, in a different way than Laa’ka’s and Hock’s were. Having the CMO call you out on something regarding their niece meant that he considered you a threat the her stability, and therefore a threat to everything they had going on. Still, that was the lowest level of a warning Shades could give. A polite request for a correction.

“She seemed to be having trouble connecting with General Billaba. You know she is better and quicker at making bonds with small groups. I thought if she went with them, it would do our collaboration go more smoothly”, he justified.

“I know”, Shades nodded. “But I _still_ think that we should have asked her what was bothering her. Maybe she is having some sort of Force-feeling or something.”

“We have very few complaints regarding Master Billaba’s leadership. All minor and fixed by talking to administrators and distributors”, Laa’ka noted.

“Also true”, the medic conceded. “But still. I’m just saying that she can sense things that we can’t, and if those put her on edge, then we should worry about it”, he insisted, looking mildly annoyed as he dug his feet into the relatively dry ground, making a grinding sound.

Ian sighed, taking in account that the situation was stressing Shades and that couldn’t stand. “We can just ask her later.”

They fell into silence, with only the hum of the heater and the rustle of brothers walking around for company.

“...Anybody has sabacc cards?”, Dogma muttered, joining them.

“No, but I have UNO”, a devilish smile drew itself on Laa’ka’s face.

“Oh, Force—”

“Let’s invite the other COs to play!”, Apollo piped up, also grinning madly.

“I thought we wanted our cooperation to go smoothly, not to have blood feuds going on before we even started!”, Ian face-palmed.

“Commander Grey!!! Captain Styles!!! Care for an alien card-game??!!!”, Laa’ka called out.

That seemed to capture their attention quickly, quite a large group making their way over to them.

“What do we bet on it?” Big-Mouth wondered out loud, stroking his beard.

“Nothing, we just betray each other for sport!”, Dogma snickered.

 

The resultant atmosphere of the wide barks of the trees and soft earth lighted by the hue of two blue ‘sabers and a green one gave the forest a... something, that made Dani just want to close her eyes, breath in the chilly air and space out. The piercing feeling of the cold on her cheeks and nose was still quite disconcerting to her, enough to keep her alert even when she didn’t want to be. Still, she politely refused Depa’s offer to lead the exercises and tried to relax as she copied her movements.

_Damn_ , she hadn’t done those in some time. After all, what was the use of it when she based her style in one-hit kills? And she favoured her switchblade and vibroblades over the lightsaber.

“Can I ask you some questions?”, Caleb piped up at a given moment, startling Ducky out of her thoughts.

She blinked at him, glanced at Depa, and back at him again when she gave a small nod.

“Sure.”

“Is it true that you can turn invisible? Why did you leave the Order? Why are you staying in the war at all when you are not a Jedi? How come _you_ got to be Head of Internal Affairs and not Master Windu or Master Koon? Is it true that you come from another galaxy? Are you really human or just very close to being one? Why—”

“Caleb”, Billaba called him gently. “Slow down. You are overwhelming her.”

Yeah, Dani was kinda overwhelmed, eyes wide and haunted as she stared at the darkness beyond their light.

“Ups. Sorry. Uhm”, the boy cleared his throat, starting anew. “So. You can turn invisible?”

“Yeah”, she replied, thankful of the change in rhythm.

“How do you do it?”, Dume prodded, curiosity and excitement clear in his voice.

“Uhm... It’s not that I make myself invisible. It’s more like—Did you know that we see our nose all the time?”, she asked back.

“Uh?”

“We see our noses all the time, right in our field of vision. It’s just, noticing it doesn’t help at all, so our brain ignores it.”

“And that’s what you do?”, he kept up. “You convince other people that you are... a nose?”

Dani laughed softly, covering Depa’s low chuckle.

“Not quite. Just that I’m not worth noticing.”

“How did you learn to do that?!

“I have... no idea. Maybe by wishing very hard not to be seen?” she shrugged, moving onto the next pose. “Okay, next question?”

“Why did you leave the Order?”, he repeated quickly. “You could be a Master by now!”

“I didn’t agree with its terms”, she shrugged. “Being considered a Master doesn’t interest me.”

“And that’s it?!”, Caleb blurted out, abandoning his stance. Both women raised an eyebrow at him and he fidgeted for a moment before going back to his training.

“Yes, that’s it”, Dani replied, a bit salty. “I could ask you the same. Why that obsession with being knighted and later turned a Master?”

“It means you are strong! And calm! And wise!”

“So you can’t be any of these if you aren’t a Jedi?”, she defied, not looking at him.

“I—I didn’t say that! I—”

“I get it”, she cut him. “Well, I think I get it: it means you are respected within your community, yes?”

“Exactly!”, he nodded, excited, and was already taking in air to go on when Ducky cut him again.

“I’m not a part of the community, ergo, I don’t care about the Jedi hierarchy.”

 Dume halted yet again.

“What do you mean you aren’t? You lived in the Temple, didn’t you?”

“So?”

“So you are one of us!”

“I’m not.”

“Why would you say that?!”, the boy exclaimed, borderline exasperated.

“Because it’s true?”

“Master!”, he complained, gesturing at the earthling.

“Maybe if you asked her why does she feel that way, young Padawan?”, she suggested diplomatically.

Dani glanced at her, but tore her eyes away as fast as she could.

“Why do you feel like that?”, Caleb asked.

She abstained from rolling her eyes.

“Well, probably because I spent little time in the Temple, because I wasn’t raised by other Jedi, and because I had other things to do rather than becoming a Jedi before I arrived at the Temple”, she decided to keep things simple. “Next question”, she said before he could inquire about her whereabouts.

“Uh”, he mused, but slid into a new stance. “So, is it true that you come from another galaxy?”

“Yes.”

“How did you get here?”

“Hitchhiking.”

“Ha, ha”, the boy laughed humourlessly “No, really: how did you get here?”

“I already told you. Next question”, she said tightly, her teeth starting to chatter.

“Are you alright, Luna?”, Billaba asked with worry.

“Getting cold”, she sighed, watching the small cloud her words produced.

“Maybe we should head back to camp.”

“I can hold on a few minutes more, if we are nearly done here.”

“Alright”, the Jedi nodded, and they went on with their exercises.

“Why did you come here?”, Caleb continued. “I mean—It’s usually hard leaving home. And you left an entire galaxy! That’s very brave!”

“I’m not brave”, she blurted out with a troubled frown, abandoning her pose and carefully pointing her laser stick away. “I didn’t—I was afraid.”

“But... you overcame it!”, he tried to cheer her up. “And that’s what true braver—”

“Leaving my planet wasn’t an act of bravery”, she cut him, colder than the air around them. “I left because I was afraid of being alone”, she spoke into the world around her.

The silence that fell around them was... not uncomfortable, but polite as they let her reflect on her words in peace.

“...I’m sorry I used a harsh tone with you, Caleb. I’m not angry at you and I shouldn’t have done that. I apologize”, she said quietly, casting her eyes down.

The Padawan blinked at her, now looking more embarrassed than startled.

“I’m sorry I pushed you... I should have noticed that it was a sore subject.”

“No, it’s alright”, Dani shook her head. “Saying it out loud was... therapeutic”, she bobbed her head to herself and leaned backwards to take a deep breath before addressing Depa. “I’m sorry I killed the mood...”

“It’s alright”, she said with a soft smile that made Ducky want to melt and cry at the same time. “We should all get some rest. The cold is unforgiving.”

 

“PLEASE! I’m _begging_ you! STOP switching colours!”, Stance almost grovelled.

“No”, Ian grinned, this time changing to yellow.

“A Sith made this game”, Soot mused, squinting at his cards.

“Come on, kid; it’s not a big thing...”

“Ah, shut up, Hock!”, Laa’ka tsked. “You _cried_ when Dani pulled three +4 on you!”

“I had sworn my loyalty to her!!! And that’s how she thanks me???!!!!”

The campsite roared with laughter.

“So... Luna is alright?”, Grey tested the waters.

Because yeah, there were rumours that the 0th took care of their brothers by kicking out Generals and other superiors, but who was looking out for the 0th’s troops?

“Yeah, she is”, Ian replied with an easy smile and a reassuring nod.

“I imagined her... different”, Styles hummed, earning a few wary looks from 0thers. “I mean—with her being from another galaxy and all. But she looks... quite familiar...”, the Captain hummed, lazily dropping a block card.

Shades, the next in turn, threw a reverse card into the pile.

“FORCEDAMMIT!”

“UNO”, the CMO drawled, waving his last card in the air.

And with that, the conversation was steered away.

“I can’t believe I’m about to lose my meiloorun to this game...”, Big-Mouth shook his head in disbelief.

“We warned you you shouldn’t bet a thing”, Apollo reminded him. “It is enough infuriating as it is.”

“Why do you play it, then?”

“When else are we going to betray each other for _fun_?”, Dogma shrugged with an amused smirk.

“Alright, fair point”, Grey shrugged back.

“Hey, Grey, let’s team up or something—“, Styles tried.

“No teaming up! Everybody is on their own in this”, Hock reminded them.

“Someone’s still bitter...”, Laa’ka snickered.

But Commander Grey had noticed the slight smiles and snickers his name invoked among the 0th.

“What?”, he asked directly to Ian, who was supressing his own snicker, mildly annoyed. Nobody likes being make fun of, after all. “What is it?”

“Sorry, sorry”, the sniper sobered up, clearing his throat. “It’s just—”

“Somebody brought UNO?”, Ducky piped up cheerfully, dropping to a crouch between Ian and Shades. Caleb and Depa followed suit, watching the strange cards with interest. The Padawan made his way to Stance and started asking him questions about the game.

“Ah, General”, Ian smirked, “I was just about to tell the Commander that we have a Grey of our own...”

She stood very, very still for a moment, eyes wide as if she had just connected two dots, and then she sputtered a laugh.

“Show him some pics!”, Laa’ka chimed in.

“Show him the soup video!”, Hock suggested instead.

Now most of the other battalion looked plainly clueless. Commander Grey had a deep frown as he tried to piece together their vague phrasing. They had a trooper named Grey, alright. It was inevitable that names got repeated, but... To offer showing him pictures? Did that vod have his name and _also_ his looks?! That was improbable, considering the big-ass scar that crossed his face, but—

In the time he had been ruminating, Dani had slipped out her phone and scrolled through her gallery, walking up to him and dropping to a crouch in font of him to turn the device around and press ‘play’.

Grey had _not_ been expecting the other Grey to be a Loth cat.

“Her full name is Grey Morals, if it makes you feel better”, Luna grinned.

And suddenly everything made sense, as he watched Grey Morals slurp soup from a spoon that Apple was holding out for her as the patient lying under the animal snickered their ass off.

The men congregated around the Commander howled with laughter.

“You get to have a pet?!”, Caleb blurted out, eyes transfixed on the screen, very much like Stance’s.

“Grey’s our medbay kitty”, Shades tried to explain, but that only evoked more laughter around them.

The Commander was turning red with embarrassment. Ducky was wheezing too, but her effort to control herself was visible. Damn: even Depa was politely covering her mouth.

“Master, we shou—”

“No.”

“But—”

“Unless we stumble upon it, we shouldn’t bring animals aboard, Caleb. We don’t know how it would react or if it would be happy... or _safe_ , in a Star Cruiser”, the Jedi placated carefully.

The boy pouted, glancing at Dani, who was too busy showing pics to the troopers to look back at him, and Depa was certain he was going to question her further.

“So, General Luna is being imprudent?”

“General Luna is an adult, and for what I have observed so far; a responsible one. If you are worried about... Grey Moral’s wellbeing, you can always ask her further about it. It might give us a good idea for preparations.”

“Preparations?”, he perked up.

“You know”, Billaba shrugged nonchalantly “In case we _do_ stumble upon a Loth cat or similar.”

She could swear that the light in her Padawan’s eyes had more value than anything else life could offer.

Around them, the laughter and snickers were finally dying down.

“Here, sir. Since it looks like you ended that game of doom; have a slice”, Big-Mouth offered Ducky, still grinning under his beard.

“Oh. Thanks!”, she finally put away her phone and took the piece of fruit, and was just about to take a bite when something didn’t add up. She frowned at it, at a loss. “...Where did you get this? Did you bring it with you?”

“Nah. Somehow, Big-Mouth gets his mitts on one no matter where we’re posted”, Captain Styles shrugged.

“But”, Dani frowned harder, and took a moment to slowly turn around in both directions before staring back at the Corporal. “...How?”

They were in the middle of nowhere. Snow everywhere. Zero chances that a melon could grow here. And she doubted they had encountered a nomad merchant or something. Why there would be a merchant selling melons in snowed mountains...?

He just shrugged, enjoying an slice of his own. Ducky’s eyes drifted to the meiloorun slice in her hand which, apparently, had a paranormal/supernatural origin.

She had no idea for how long she stared at it, but suddenly it was snatched from her hand and she yelped, turning in the direction it had disappeared to see Ian taking a generous bite. She gave him an unamused expression, and he returned a teasing smile around his chewing.

“Didn’t seem like you were going to eat it, and it would be a shame for it to go to waste...”

“Hm”, she huffed with impartiality, and took a step to enter his personal space, looking straight into his eyes.

Ian blinked and tensed a bit, wondering if he had overstepped, but then Dani’s fingers pinched at a section of his beard and pulled lightly; not enough to make him wince but enough for him to feel it clearly. She showed the tip of her fingers to him, revealing a speck of mashed fruit.

“You got some stuck”, she commented, and stepped back, tossing it on the floor.

“Ah. Thanks.”

“Nice beard you have there, Commander”, Grey complimented kindly.

Ian was proudly stroking his facial hair when Big-Mouth spoke up.

“Mine’s better.”

The challenge called everybody who had heard it to attention. Big-Mouth and Ian were glaring at each other, but only the former kept up a mischievous smile.

“Generals, what do you think? You both are more impartial, since you’ll never grow beards, right?”, he asked, clearly amused and going for the win.

Depa and Dani glanced at each other, also amused.

“I like Commander Ian’s careful trim. Seems very pleasant to touch”, Depa smiled.

“It is”, Ducky confirmed. “But look at Big-Mouth. Look at the RAW POWER of the beard-moustache combination. Superb”, she crossed her arms and bobbed her head, glancing at Ian to see if she was making him jealous.

But he saw her smirk and rolled his eyes, way above that. Yes, there was a tiny part of him that still feared being replaced or just straight up losing the relationship he had with Dani. But as it had been said: that part of him had been greatly dwarfed with time and the kind of little moments than meant the world.

“Guess we’ll just have to switch Corps, huh, ‘Mouth?”, the Commander grinned.

“I recko—”

“No”, Luna immediately blurted, and averted her eyes when all gazes fell on her. She pursed her lips, blushing at the attention. “I am biased and after all I like Ian’s beard more”, she admitted.

“AAAAAWWWWWWWWWWW”, what seemed to be the whole 0th and some of Depa’s men cooed.

Ducky blushed harder, even doubling on herself to try to hide.

“I am going to sleep!”, she excused herself pitifully, turning on her heels and stalking towards the closest tent.

“Truth is; I am biased too. Your beard is sublime, Big-Mouth”, Depa mercifully tried to redirect the situation.

“Aw, General. I knew I could count on you”, he grinned, satisfied.

“It’s a draw, then”, Ian declared.

“Yes”, the other agreed, before adding in a lower voice; “But mine’s better.”

And thus, a rivalry was born.

 

With a whole day of trekking through the snow before them, they collected their gear and got going. It was way more pleasant to be around snow when the sun beamed among them, and with it’s warmth added to the isolating power of their snow-armour, it was as if they were walking through a spring field.

Minus de resistance of snow every time they took a step, of course.

Dani was still intrigued enough by the novelty of the cold weather to entertain herself by just... walking. She would join the chatter every now and then, but would eventually space out again. Shades caught her staring at their surroundings.

“What are you looking for?”

“What?”, she startled, turning to him, and the CMO was just about to repeat his question when she kept talking. “Ah, huh. Megafauna thrives in cold climate, just like microfauna thrives in hot weather. I was wondering what kind of animals live around here, but I haven’t sensed a thing...”

“Hm... The trees are quite tall. Maybe there’s fauna living in the canopies, but it’s too far high for you to sense”, he suggested.

“Maybe”, she shrugged. “That’s... kind of worrying, tho.”

“So, should we get ready for three-meter tall predators, sir?”, Hock chimed in.

“Let’s hope not”, she huffed. “Based on nothing, I would bet for giraffe type herbivores. Tall enough to eat the tree’s leaves. But I haven’t seen any footprints, so... I have no idea. I would assume that most animals must be hibernating, but it doesn’t make any sense if this planet is permanently covered in snow... Why are all the planets in this galaxy so boring, anyway?”, she asked out loud.

“What do you mean, boring?”, Caleb asked, equally parts bothered by the question and intrigued.

“It’s like—Almost always, a whole planet has ONE biome. How come? Does latitude not mean a thing in this galaxy?”

“There’s lots of other factors to determine a planet’s climate”, Depa said. “Distance from its star, number of stars it orbits, speed at which the planet rotates...”

“Yeah, yeah, but for they to be inhabitable for humans, they have to be within a safe zone that allows life as we now it. And _this_ planet is within the safe zone, or we wouldn’t be breathing its air. So why does the inhabitable planets of _your_ galaxy have mostly one single landscape?”

“Are you implying that _your_ planet has more than one?”, Caleb asked, eyebrow arched in disbelief.

“Yes! That’s totally what I’m saying!”

“Yeah, of course! Next you gonna tell me you have deserts and jungles and tundra and swamps in a single planet!”, the Padawan huffed mockingly.

“We _do_!”, Ducky insisted, very serious about it.

The boy held her gaze, trying to see the lie, but he wasn’t succeeding.

“But...! That’s impossible! The chaos! The disequilibrium and natural disasters that would cause...!”

“We have them too! Typhoons, monsoons, earthquakes, volcanos, tidal waves! You name it! We have them!”

“For those to spark up there has to be a great difference of temperature between two masses in a particular space...”, Depa mused

“Yeah, well, you know: depending on the latitude there’s more or less humidity, and the temperature also changes greatly, since the sunrays hit the surface of the planet differently due to the tilted axis—"

“Stop right there”, Dogma blurted out, slowly turning his helmet towards her. “ _Tilted_ axis?”

“Yeah”, Ducky nodded, thrown off by his tone before an idea sparked in her mind. “Oh. Do the planets of this galaxy have a straight axis?”

Slowly, everybody nodded around her.

“No _kriffing_ wonder you are like this! As unpredictable as your planet!”, Shades laughed loudly.

“I can’t believe it. A tilted axis... And you live like that?!”, Soot muttered in disbelief.

“But I thought that was impossible! I thought the disequilibrium was supposed to be too grate, that the planet would collapse!”, Caleb continued, eyes wide behind his protective glasses.

“I thought _all_ planets had a tilted axis”, Dani shrugged. “Guess Terra managed to find a balance within the chaos.”

“Your planet is a nightmare!”

“Not the first time someone has said that to me.”

There was a moment of stunned silence as they kept walking.

“So _that’s_ why your planets are so dull.”

 

They found another patch of forest to sleep at night.

Setting up camp went smoother than the day before, now that everybody had had time to talk and get to know each other. They reunited around the heaters, the COs discussed briefly with the scouts the possible routes they could take the next morning, Ducky’s lightsaber was passed around to thaw several rations that had ended up frozen, much to Dume’s dismay—“ _It’s a sacred weapon!”, “It’s a tool”—_ , several games of UNO were played as the rounds stretched late into the night, the drama that the game caused too good to pass up; to the point that people started falling asleep around the heaters instead of inside the tents.

Soot watched General Luna stir from where she was lying half-sprawled on Dogma. Her eyes flung open and she scowled as she flexed her abs to sit up, checking her surroundings.

“Everything okay, sir?” he asked, aware of Force-users’ hypersensitivity.

“Hm? Oh. Yeah”, she replied, groggy with sleep. Ducky seemed to be having trouble keeping her eyes open. “It was caveman brain. Not danger brain”, she mumbled, and laid down again.

The Sergeant just blinked at her, not having any idea what was that about but not wanting to ask in case she was already back asleep. But she suddenly sprang back up, squinting at the middle distance with an annoyed look.

“...I have to go do unspeakable things...”, she muttered, and swiftly stood up, headed for the latrine. But the more steps she took away from the heaters, the smaller her steps were, and she ultimately halted completely before turning on her heels and going back to use Dogma as a pillow. “I suddenly don’t have to do unspeakable things anymore”, she muttered, repressing a visible shiver before closing her eyes again.

Pressing a fist to his mouth was all Soot could do to try and repress a bout of laughter.

 

“—nd Big-Mouth was like: ‘YoU GReEn KIdS hAVe nO BuSiNEss BeIng HerE!!!’”

Caleb and Stance laughed loudly, but not enough to cover Dani’s long snort.

Ian smacked the back of her helmet with a concealed huff of his own.

“Auch!”

“You’re supposed to set a good example.”

“See, see? General Luna agrees with us! You’re keeping our leashes too short!”

“No no no!”, Dani hurried to deny, turning to glare at the boy directly in the eyes. “I know I’ve laughed, but the Corporal is right and he should say it!”

“Aha!”, Big-Mouth nodded fervently, satisfied with the support received.

“But—You already question everything! I bet if I were your Padawan you would give me more free reign!”

“Pal, if it were for me, you wouldn’t _be_ here”, Dani scowled, letting it show in her voice.

Caleb seemed affronted by her answer, but she just kept walking.

“I thought you were cool!”, he accused childishly.

“And you are not wrong!”

Laa’ka ran up to her to high-five her.

“But, sir, we have all the right to be here!”, Stance tried. “If we want to fight, then why shouldn’t we be here?”

“Too young”, came the unison reply from Depa, Ian, Grey, Soot, Styles, Dogma, Dani, Big-Mouth, Shades and Laa’ka.

“I’m starting to think that’s just a cheap answer...!”

“Oh, would you like a rewording, for a change?”, Ducky snapped, coming to a stop and turning towards him to intertwine her fingers in front of her.

“She’s gonna do it to him...”, Laa’ka muttered under his breath, almost in awe.

Meanwhile, Stance had stumbled to a halt, straightening unconsciously.  Caleb had kept walking, but took a couple of steps back to stand defiantly next to his friend, arms crossed and pouting aggressively at her.

“Have you had any experiences apart from war, Stance?”, she asked, her tone letting know that she already knew the answer, and therefore, she had already won.

The whole group ended up stopping their march, murmurs raising as the ones on the back started asking what was going on in the front.

“...No”, the young trooper finally had to admit.

“There you have it”, she muttered, and turned to resume their pace.

But now there was an uncomfortable tension around her and the silence between Stance and Caleb was deafening, and she could feel Shades’ and probably what was Styles’ and Grey’s eyes on her nape; and guilt was building up in her chest and _goddammit—_

She slowed her strides and careened a bit to end up next to the young man. He tensed again, so she went directly to the point.

“I’m sorry I have been harsh to you. It’s a subject that bothers me but I had no right to snap at you because it’s not your fault.”

“I. Uh. It’s fine, sir. Thanks”, Stance sputtered out.

“No, it’s not fine. But it’s not like we can do anything about it at the moment, and that’s why I want to apolog—”

“INCOMING!!!”

The whistling of a missile came out of nowhere and became deafening. Everybody tensed, guns raising just like their gazes, trying to see where the projectile was going to hit and who had to run. But the missile soared past them, straight to the side of a looming white mountain.

“Oh, no—“, Billaba muttered.

It exploded, and what had seemed like a steady, homogeny blanket of snow collapsed, tons and tons of frozen water heading straight for them.

Dani turned, spotting the closest patch of trees and pointing to it.

“RUN!!!!!”, she ordered.

Nobody hesitated to bolt back and sprint as fast as the snow under their boots would allow them too. They could hear the rumble of the avalanche behind them, getting louder and louder.

Those who had been at the back of the march had already reached the trees and were climbing up the lowest branches, kneeling down to help their brothers up as they arrived. The ones that were more at risk were actually the ones that had been leading.

The Command Officers.

Ducky was keeping up her Force-sight to keep tabs on everyone and stay alert in case they were about to be ambushed with ground troops. But the forest seemed devoid of life, apart from the trees. At least that was one thing less to worry about.

The noise behind them kept getting impossibly loud. Nobody dared try to turn and see how far it was. It wouldn’t do any good anyways.

Caleb was having trouble keeping up, with his shorter legs. It was the only logic decision that Depa would Force-yeet him into the trees. Hurrying to steady himself in the slippery branch he had landed on, he closed his eyes and raised his hands, pulling Stance towards him.

In moments like these Ducky would give a limb for the ability to do that. Since it was not a right moment for experimentation and a convenient miracle was unlikely, she just kept running.

Next, Depa yeeted Ian. Dani was thankful for that; she had feared for a moment that they would only focus on putting their men to safety. Which was totally understandable, but still. She would have been angry about it. Dogma, Grey, Laa’ka and Soot were also catapulted to the lower canopy. It had felt like hours, but it couldn’t have been more than a minute of adrenaline-fueled action. The only ones left running from the CO group were Depa, Shades, Styles and Ducky. Among the trees, Caleb stared past them with wide, horrified eyes, halting his rescue effort for a moment.

“Caleb!!!!”, Depa bellowed. “Caleb, don’t stop!!!”

The boy’s eyes were scared, haunted. The eyes of a too-young person having to make a too-tough decision.

He couldn’t be blamed for picking up Depa. She was kind of like his surrogate mother, right? Nobody could hold that against him.

Dani let out a shaky sigh, containing all the fear she wasn’t even aware she was feeling.

She stumbled in the snow.

And then there were two strong arms gripping her arm tightly, and she was swung around and into the air.

She stared into Shades’ visor as he let go of her, horrified.

_Go. You’ll find us_ , the thought was pushed into her mind.

“SHADES!!!!”, she screeched in anguish.

Still held afloat by her Padawan, Depa suspended her in the air, dragging her to safety.

From her vantage point, she got a very clear, very gut-wrenching view of Shades and Styles being swept away by the avalanche.

Sorrowful shouts rose from the trees, crying out their grief and despair at  the sudden loss.

Ducky’s eyes were tracking the Force-presences she could feel below the snow, feeling numb and lungs burning as she realized she had stopped breathing. She took in a short breath, only enough for her mind to go into override and be able to talk:

“Put me down!!! PUT ME THE _FUCK_ DOWN!!!!”, she yelled at General Billaba.

The older woman was looking at her with pity, and that only made the fire in Dani’s eyes burn brighter as she started struggling in her grip. Desperate not to drop her into the still sliding snow, Depa swung her towards the safety of the depths of the forest. She feared she had sent another person to her death, doing her best only to have the young General die crushed against a tree. But Dani bounced back from the bark, finding purchase in a thick branch just to make an augmented hop to the next one, her strides gaining force and covering more ground with every jump she made, following the flow of the avalanche.

Depa didn’t want to, but she had to stop her. She had to be the one to tell her that Styles and Shades were lost, that they wouldn’t be able to find them. That they needed her here, that they needed her to be the leader she had worked so hard to be—

And then, as she was set down beside her trembling Padawan and Commander, an image flashed through her mind. Through everybody’s mind, if their startled flinches were anything to go by.

The image of two bright lights, being dragged away; suffering, but alive. The harsh breaths and desperate heartbeat of the one running after them, aware that if the lights got out of range they would lose them for real.

And then the 0th let out a battle cry, and they all made their way down the branches and to the safest part of the ground, were the avalanche had been stopped by the thick vegetation and it was safe to step on, running after their General and lost brother.

“M-Master, I—“, Caleb tried to speak shakily.

“Mouth, Stance, stay with him”, as all she said, already planning her descend. “Commander, let’s go!”

Grey didn’t even acknowledge her, too anxious, too hopeless and hopeful at the chances of being able to haul Styles out of the snow. But by the Force, they had a chance.

_They had a chance_

 

Ducky stared anxiously at the flowing snow. It was finally slowing down, but she _needed_ to get closer, needed to get them out of there NOW, but there were no openings, no chances, and every second that passed Shades’ and Styles’ chances of survival were less and less—

It was a miracle that they were still alive. That they hadn’t been crushed to death by the pressure or debris that the avalanche surely packed.

_Force, Force, if you ARE real please save them, hold on hold on hold on—_

Her patience was wavering. Only a concoction of voices murmuring deep inside her mind kept her from jumping straight into the slide; Aleluia’s, Yaddle’s, Pedal’s, Wolffe’s, Rex’s, Kix’s, Ian’s… She could hear the voice of everyone who cared about her, one way or another. What in any other situation would have been a reason for warmth and internal peace and bliss, now only brought more anguish on her. Their voices; reminding her to be careful, to do whatever was in her power and more to keep living; keeping her from saving Shades, saving her _friend_ , the man that was practically her surrogate father, who had promised to _STAY_.

A ringing in her ears was getting louder and louder threatening with throwing her of her rhythm and put her in a situation where she would also be in danger and not helping anybody—

The avalanche slowed down, debris being left uncovered as the snow scattered and thinned.

With a tight gasp, Dani jumped down into the mess. Her lungs and throat burned as she breathed in through her mouth, making her way to the two dimming Force-signatures. Styles was closer, but Shades was just a few meters away, so she could check on him first and then—

Styles signal sputtered out, and Ducky froze were she had been about to run past. He was—She couldn’t—She—

She threw off her helmet and dug her arms into the snow, latching onto the Captain’s chestplate and bringing him out with a mighty pull. She laid him out and slipped off his helmet, biting her glove off to search for a pulse.

Ten seconds, and she didn’t find one.

“Fuck!”, she swore through clenched teeth, and started chest compressions furiously to the beat of _Staying alive_.

“Dani!”, Raven’s voice called out as he appeared skidding from behind a snow slope.

She didn’t look at him, but spared a moment to expand the sharing of her Force-sight, directing attention at Shades’ signal anxiously.

“Grab my ‘saber and thaw him! Fucking _thaw_ him!”, she screeched before pinching Styles’ nose and blowing a breath into his mouth.

The ARF immediately sprung to action, snatching the laser stick from her belt and sprinting to were Shades’ signal was dimming steadily, a hand sticking out of the snow ominously.

“Dani—!”, Ian was the next to appear.

“Go with Raven!”, she yelled as she started chest compressions again.

More 0thers arrived, going to help dig out Shades or staggering to a halt before moving to form a barrier and protect Dani and Styles from the wind that blew over them every now and them. Soon after Depa’s men started arriving, with herself on the lead. They had seen through Ducky’s shared sight that Styles had plummeted, but now they froze at the sight of the young woman performing CPR to a _vod_.

No—Nobody did CPR on clones. Ever.

Apollo elbowed past them and towards the downed Captain, snapping Grey out of it. The Commander ran after the medic, dropping to his knees next to his closest brother as he also tried to stay out of the way of those who could help him the most.

“How long as he been like this?”, Apollo asked.

“Don’t know”, Dani croaked, her voice raspy and almost out of breath.

“Let me take over, how many repetitions have you done?”, he questioned, hands already in position to go on with compressions.

“Three”, she gasped. “It’s breath time”, she leaned back, arms quaking on her lap as she desperately inhaled the cold air.

God, she was dizzy. She shut down the shared Force-sight, and that seemed to lesser it. She kept fighting to keep control of her breathing. Her helmet was jammed on her head and she flinched away to discover it had been Dogma.

“You need to breath warm air, Dani. Keep trying. It’s alright”, he coached her as he secured her helmet in place.

She gripped his arm as tight as she could with her trembling hands. Dogma knelt down and wrapped his arms around her, helping her stay sitting up as her chest heaved less and less. By the time she finally regained a semblance of normal breathing, Apollo was still performing CPR. Grey looked distraught beside him, even with his helmet covering his face, but it was clear in the desperate way he gripped Styles’ hand between his.

Apollo’s rhythm was slowing down, and she could start to feel the defeat slowly leeching out of him.

“Fuck this”, she breathed out, and leaned forward, her unprotected hand sprawled over Styles’ chest, “CLEAR!”

What she sent into the Captain’s body was a weird mix. Of electricity and life-force. Stubbornness and desperation. Hope and faith. Reproaches and pleas. She had never done that before.

Styles’ whole body jerked, letting out a strangled gasp before finally coughing and _breathing_.

Ducky collapsed back into Dogma’s arms. He hurried to wrap her tight and drag her away a bit so Styles’ brothers could gather around him. Grey had moved to place his head on his lap and was now cradling his face, encouraging him to stay awake. Soot moved to snatch up the hand that had been abandoned, while Depa took cautious steps to place a hand on her Captain’s shoulder and check him over with a gentle touch of the Force.

“Where’s Shades?”, Dani gasped.

“Ian and the others got him, and Apollo is now with him—”

“I wanna go too…”, she clawed at his shoulder, trying to stand up.

“Sir, you need _at the very least_ a minute—”

“I wanna go with him!”, she cried out, struggling in his grip.

“Alright, alright! But you have to let me help you, okay?”, Dogma placated too.

She nodded her agreement and slid her arm around his neck, letting him pull her to her feet. They walked together the few meters that were between them and the congregation of 0thers. Hock, who had already been monitoring her periodically noticed them approaching and tapped his siblings’ shoulders, causing them to open a path for them. Dogma lowered Ducky next to Apollo and across from Ian, who was anxiously staring down at the CMO’s chattering teeth and quaking body.

“What’s wrong?”

“His heating system broke. Sever hypothermia”, Apollo reported. “We need to warm him up ASAP.”

“None of us are carrying heaters!”, Ian reminded them, at the edge of panicking.

“I’ve got this”, Raven piped up, switching on Dani’s lightsaber.

“Use it”, she nodded her permission. “Somebody get my backpack!”

“Backpack!”

“The General’s backpack! Get it here!”, the order was relied.

Bubble spotted it were Luna had abandoned it near were Styles was still lying and hurried to pick it up and bring it over.

“Here!”, he called, lowering it into her lap.

Dani zipped it open, revealing a surprising amount of colourful fabrics as she started pulling out scarfs and gloves and thermal clothing.

“ _That’s_ what you packed?!”, Bubble blurted out.

“It’s my first time in the snow!!! I didn’t want to be cold!!!”, she defended herself, passing items to Ian and Apollo for them to wrap Shades in it. “And it’s useful, isn’t it?! Give me a break!”, she shrieked, hands still shaking.

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry”, he hurried to apologize when he noticed them.

Raven carefully swept the ‘saber over sections of Shades’ body as Apollo, Ian and Hock made a common effort to strip him from his useless armour and get him into the Ducky-sized clothes. They were a bit taunt on him, but more functional than uncomfortable, so it would have to do. After another coat (this one big enough for him to fit perfectly in it, Force bless Dani’s paranoia…), Apollo pulled out his medscan and scanned Shades again.

“…”

“What?”, Ian asked anxiously.

“He has stopped shivering.”

The Commander shot a hand to the CMO’s cheek, confirming that yes; he was still cold as an ice cream, so no; the fact that Shades wasn’t shivering anymore wasn’t a good sign.

“What do we do?!”

“The laser stick is not enough, we have to set up a tent, a bedroll, a heater!”, the medic insisted, leaning back to look around, trying to spot somebody carrying the right equipment.

“My men have them”, Depa spoke from a respectful distance. “We are already setting up camp in the forest and arranging transport for the injured.”

The Jedi Master looked uncharacteristically tense, her fingers twitching as she just stared worriedly at Shades’ immobile form. She glanced back at Styles, safe and surrounded by his brothers, and caught the carriers of the first stretcher going straight for the Captain.

“Take Shades first! He needs it more!”, she called out.

With a startled jerk, they trotted up to them.

Dogma made to pull Dani out of the way so they could set Shades on the stretcher, but she resisted, trying to reach for him.

“Sir, please”, he tried softly as Raven also tried to convince Ian to move away. “You’ve done enough, you have to—”

“No!”, she kicked out, trying to throw herself out of his grip, but he only held onto her tighter. “I can—I can give him some energy, some heat—”

“You just did that with Styles! You are just coming down from sharing your sight with _all_ of us! Don’t even try to make me believe you have anything to spare!”, he roared.

Ducky slumped and whimpered in distress and helplessness. It broke Dogma’s heart, but if Shades couldn’t be saved, he wouldn’t be losing Dani too.

“Use mine.”

They both craned their necks to look up at Master Billaba, who knelt down beside them.

“I’m more rested. Use my energy”, she continued, offering a spread hand.

They both stared at it for a long moment, Dogma’s frown more confused than Dani’s worried one.

“…Are you sure? It’s—”

_Tugging your life-force out of you. Immoral. Dark._

_Pouring life into somebody. Necessary. Yearned._

“You saved Styles”, she stated with a determined nod. “It’s the least I can do.”

Not being able to restrain herself anymore, Ducky shot out a hand and clasped Depa’s, reaching for Shades’ knee with the other. This time, Dogma shifted her to help.

The Jedi gasped as she felt her strength being siphoned out of her. There was a moment of primal panic in which she only wanted to shake off the hand restraining her and crawl away, and she had to remember herself that she had volunteered for it, that Luna was trying to save somebody dear to her and she hopped very very hard that she hadn’t misjudged the younger and she didn’t decide to just—Leave her drained like a raisin.

The initial tug let down as Dani exhaled, looking more relaxed as Shades assimilated and put the energy to use. Taking life-force from another person felt weird and _wrong_ , because she couldn’t really feel the person’s limit, only intuit it; even less when her focus kept digging deeper and deeper into Shades, uninterested of Depa’s wellbeing. So the effort to not kill her was conscious, and god; she hated this feeling but it was helping Shades—

She noticed a faint tremble in the knee under her hand and she sighed again, cutting the connection. She was left with some of Depa’s life-Force within her and she froze for a moment.

The Jedi could feel it: Luna was weakened too, and the ancestral urge of survival and providing for oneself was understandable. Billaba was panting, but she knew she wasn’t as bad as her. She tried to offer it willingly through the precarious bound formed between them, but Ducky recoiled. She seemed to evaluate the energy with longing and finally split it in half, offering a portion back. Depa accepted it, and finally the bond was lost as the young General let go of her.

“General!”, Soot was calling, shaking her shoulder. “General, what did she do to you?!”, he sent an accusing look at Dani.

Dogma pressed her against his chest, glaring up at him.

Around them, Shades was being carried away, followed closely by Ian and Apollo.

“I… volunteered…”, she explained between pants. “I’m fine… Just tired…”, she waved off his worries and looked down to take a gulp of air before looking up at him again. “Styles?”

“In and out of consciousness, but breathing”, he reported, relief clear in his voice.

“Good”, Depa nodded, “Good. Caleb?”

“In the camp. ‘Mouth says… He is not doing that well…”

The woman sighed lengthy. That would have to be dealt with. She glanced at Dani: still and quiet in her Captain’s arms.

“Let’s head there, then.”

 

“Ribs… hurt…”, Styles complained.

“You got several rounds of CPR. Chances are that your ribs are cracked”, Grey tried to joke with an uneasy smile.

Apollo had heard the exchange and was now digging into Shades’ backpack, pulling out a dorsal bracer and brining it over to them.

“Sit him up a little. This will help a bit”, he instructed.

Grey carefully slipped an arm under Styles’ shoulders and a hand behind his head to pull him up enough so Apollo could slip the brace around his back.

“Did I…?”, the Captain croaked, confused. But as he was lowered again and the brace secured around his chest, his expression morphed into an amused one. “Who was the… lucky one… that got to kiss me…?”

“General Luna”, the medic deadpanned.

His eyes went wide as he almost choked on air.

“Congrats on being the first of us to be kissed by a pretty girl, _vod_!”, Big-Mouth patted his thigh with a grin.

“Wish I had been awake for it…”, he mused.

“You guys better not chatter about that when Laa’ka is near. Or Ian. Or Venus. Or Shades. Or Hock. Or Raven. Or Pedal, Feather, Compass, Gossip, Apple—”

“It’s okay. You can say ‘the whole 0th’”, Grey cut him.

“—or myself”, Apollo completed.

“Aw, look at them. Protective of their General.”

“And you are not?”

“Touché”, Big-Mouth had to admit with a shrug. “But come on, it’s meant as a harmless joke. Would somebody throw hands about it?”

“…Probably not, but we don’t like people assuming that she is available for men”, the medic huffed, dosing a hypo with painkiller for Styles.

“I know I was unconscious”, the wounded man gulped. “But I swear I did my best to kiss back”, he laughed softly, wincing when it aggravated his ribs.

“It’s not about if it was good or not, _vod_ ”, Apollo allowed himself a smirk as he administered the medication. “She is Home of Sexual.”

There was a moment of general confusion inside the tent, and Styles at first thought it must be because of the meds, but his brothers looked as confused as he felt until it suddenly dawned on them.

“Oh.”

“Oh.”

“So what I got… is really special, isn’t it?”, Styles mumbled to the tent’s ceiling, strangely reflective.

“It wasn’t even a kiss”, Apollo rolled his eyes, but seemed to take pity in him at the last moment. “But if it makes you feel better: yes, it was”, he patted his shoulder lightly. “Now sleep. You need the rest.”

With his pain dulled, he went out like a light.

The medic let out a tired sigh and stood up.

“Alright. He needs to be watched through the night in case he stops breathing. Can you set up shifts?”

“We’ll do, _vod_. Thank you”, Grey nodded his appreciation.

“Right. Call me if something happens”, he added before slipping out of the tent and slipping into the next one.

 

In yet another tent, Depa had just dismissed Stance and seated a shaking Caleb on her lap. She was wrapped up in her bedroll and had a steaming drink sitting near, to help her regain the strength she had donated. Her Padawan clung to her, but refused to look at her in the eyes.

“Caleb”, she called softly, and gently went to turn his chin so he was facing her.

He lowered his eyes, lips trembling.

“Caleb; this was not your fault.”

“It was Styles or you”, he blurted out, sobs escaping his throat and voice pitching higher and higher as the hysterics settled in, “I didn’t even consider saving Luna or Shades! It was just you or Styles and I chose you because…! Because…!”, he bit his lips and finally looked up at her, a wounded soul behind his flooded eyes.

She pulled him to her chest and rocked him gently. She wanted to comfort him _so badly_. But the only thing that came to mind was that he had taken a strategic decision: he had saved the higher slab of the chain of command, the Jedi, the irreplaceable; and while Dani also met those requirements, Caleb had been under a lot of pressure and just—reacted. But Depa hated herself enough for even thinking that: there was no way she could say that to her Padawan, a _child_ , in an attempt at comforting him.

“You did your best”, she murmured into his ear instead. “Nobody is angry at you, everybody is alright.”

“Styles isn’t!”, he whimpered into her robes, distraught. “Shades isn’t!”

“They will be”, she reassured him, not ceasing her rocking. “We’ll be alright, Caleb. We all did our best…”

 

The third tent was crowded, but Apollo elbowed his way inside nonetheless. The combined heat of the heater and the bodies was a bit overwhelming at first. The medic tore off his helmet and chest plate, placing them beside the entrance before making his way to his patient.

Shades had been laid on a bedroll next to the heater and his body rubbed all over in an attempt to warm him up slowly. As much as they just wanted to wrap him up in more of Dani’s thermal clothes, a functional heating armour AND all the blankets they could put their hands on and let him toast next to the heater, they had all been talked through how to treat hypothermia. Apollo just repeated it every now and then to make sure nobody got too impatient, reminding them that warming Shades up too fast would hurt him.

Ian, Bubble and Dogma kneeled opposite of Raven, Laa’ka and Venus as they rubbed fervently but carefully different sections of the CMO’s body. Dani laid curled at his feet, trapping them between her arms and chest as she slept. It’s not that it made any difference, she had just fallen asleep like that and Dogma growled at whoever tried to pry her away. Shades shivered under their ministrations, breath hitching and halting as it slipped through his chattering teeth. Apollo slipped out his medscan and took his temperature again.

“Start dressing him”, he ordered before turning to a thermo left near Shades’ head.

The rustle behind him confirmed that the others were doing as they were told. There wasn’t any reason they wouldn’t, after all. They all wanted the best for their friend. By the time he turned back to his patient the others had slipped a dry set of blacks on him and were adding Ducky’s extra clothing. Shades still shuddered violently, whines of distress escaping his lips.

“It’s alright, Shades”, Ian murmured soothingly to him, softly rubbing his chest. “You’ll feel better soon. We have you something for you to drink, alright? It’s warm, it’ll help.”

The Commander propped him up slightly as Apollo held the cup to his lips. He tipped it carefully, a bit of the lukewarm water flowing into his mouth.

Shades sputtered it back up, a tight gasp and a coughing fit following.

“It’s okay, it’s okay… Just try again. C’mon, Shades, easy. Swallow. Like that. Well done…”, he continued coaching him, relief clear as crystal in his voice as the medic finally managed to get some of the drink down his throat.

“Alright… so far so good”, Apollo hummed, putting the thermo down. “Wrap him up with some blankets. Venus, go get someone to replace you six. We’re going to be with this all night…”, he sighed, accepting that he was going to spend another sleepless night.

They did as he said and scampered off as the replacements arrived, but Commander Ian didn’t make a move to leave.

“Ian”, Apollo called him, squishing his shoulder. The other bit his lip, as if refusing to acknowledge him. “Ian; you need to rest, too.”

“I can’t”, he blurted out, and turned to look back at him with utter misery in his eyes. “You know I won’t be able to, ‘Pollo.”

“At least lie down and close your eyes”, he sighed. “Please.”

Ian bit his lip and lowered his eyes, as if he were about to refuse even that.

But then somebody squished his shoulder firmly from behind, and Ian startled, turning around with exhausted eyes to stare up at Dogma’s worried gaze.

“Come on, sir”, he began, gently nudging him to lie down beside Shades. “You can rest. I’ve got this.”

He had never done this. He had never left Dogma in charge when Dani was down and he was about to be down too. This meant leaving the whole 0th to Dogma, and for a brief moment, it scared him. It scared him that he wouldn’t be there to redirect the situation if something went wrong, and Dani wouldn’t either: as she was, dead to the world at Shades’ feet. It scared him that Dogma would be left alone with the gargantuan pressure of leading Internal Affairs, faced with a General and two Commanders of a different battalion without their support.

It scared him tha—

_No._

No; he forced himself to stop with the last threads of coherency remaining in the panicking spiral that had been his mind since Shades had been swept away by the avalanche, and closed his eyes.

It would be just a night.

Dogma had been with them for a long time. He knew how things went. It had been stablished that General Billaba and Commanders Dume and Grey were good people, and at the moment they were worried with their own wounded. It would be a night in the camp, and Dogma was more than capacitated to take charge for that time.

Even for longer.

“Alright”, Ian sighed, opening his eyes tiredly. “Alright.”

 

Ducky jerked into wakefulness, the memories of the day before hitting her like a train. She gasped loudly and sat up quickly, making herself dizzy.

“It’s alright, Dani”, Laa’ka’s voice called from the other side of the tent, hushed. “You’re okay.”

They held each other’s gazes: the ARC trooper to asses her mental state, the General to calm herself down. Slowly, she regained control over her breathing, but she squirmed, uncomfortable with a sticky feeling on her skin, arising anxiety making her heart pound loudly in her ears.

“You alright?”

“Stressed”, she gasped.

“Yeah, we guessed you weren’t really processing things yesterday. You should eat something, but some fresh air first would do you good.”

“I’m sick of snow”, she snarled. “I don’t like it anymore”, her complain turned into a whine and she hunched forward, distressed.

“Hock, come here; Dani’s awake”, Laa’ka spoke quickly into his comm.

He would be more than glad of helping her through this, but currently his hands were full with Shades. And Hock—Hock was a good man. They teased each other a lot about which one of them was Ducky’s true right hand, but… Truth is: they both were. Or at least that was what he liked to think.

Not even a minute later Hock arrived, eyes sweeping the expanse of the tent and giving a nod at the ARC before making his way to were Dani was hugging her knees, eyes wide and distant. He called her name softly and spread his arms, offering a hug but not imposing it on her. She sniffed and uncurled from her position, letting him pull her closer.

“You’re safe. It will be fine”, he hushed her gently. “We’ll get the job done and leave and then you’ll refuse any other mission that involves snow because you can afford it.”

Ducky laughed shakily in his arms and Hock smiled despite himself, gently rubbing her back.

“Are you up to eating something?”

“…Maybe.”

“I’ve got rations bars.”

She scowled.

“At least try”, he huffed, opening the package for her.

Dani took it and busied herself with it for a moment. She didn’t feel like throwing up, so that was good, at least. And she was feeling calmer now. Next, Hock passed her a waterpack. She took three long gulps to wash down the food and gave it a rest.

With herself more or less settled, her General-brain perked up; anxious to get back on track.

“How’s Shades?”, she asked Laa’ka, a thread of fear in her voice.

“Warmer”, he reassured her, but seemed insecure about it. “Apollo said there’s some risk of pneumonia, but so far he doesn’t look sick. Hasn’t woken up yet, though; but that could be plain exhaustion”, he shrugged, going back to smoothing his fingers through Shades’ hair.

Dani nodded to nobody in particular, feeling a bit more et ease at the news. She noticed another body lying down next to Shades, and for a moment her heartbeat skyrocketed as her eyes went wide and she rose on her knees.

“What—“, she was starting to ask, alarmed.

“Ian is just sleeping”, Hock reassured her, grabbing her wrist softly to keep her from tumbling about. “He’s had a rough night.”

“…I see”, she said slowly, lowering herself down.

She brought her hands to her face and rubbed vigorously, trying to get rid of any remnants of sleep; and it must have worked, because her brain brought a thing to her attention.

“…Where’s Dogma?”

“Around the camp”, Laa’ka piped up. “He has been keeping the men updated and calm. And made a good damn job of it”, he seemed to admit, very pleased about it.

“Oh”, Dani blinked in surprise. “Well, I’m glad to hear that”, she smiled warmly, somehow mesmerized by it. “And Depa and the others?”

“Haven’t heard a word from them, so I guess nobody died”, Hock shrugged.

A quick Force-sweep confirmed that, indeed, everybody was alive.

“Alright… Guess I’ll go find Dogma and General Billaba, decide where we go from here”, she explained vaguely, standing up and stretching.

After a whole night of sleeping curled around Shades’ feet, several of her vertebrae snapped into place.

“Ohhhhhh my god”, she swore quietly. “I feel so damn _young_.”

Both men sputtered a laugh, hurrying to cover their mouths as to not wake their Commander up. Dani offered them a thankful smile before putting on her snow-gear and stepping outside.

The camp looked the same as always, but… there was a different air to it. More uncertainty; not at the point of being concerning or overly uncomfortable, but it was quite clear that this had not been a regular stop in their schedule. Of course everybody was still shaken: not everyday you have to run for your life from an avalanche. And dying from blaster fire when you have been trained for battle all of your life was a thing, but dying from _snow_ seemed… dumb and horrifying in a morbid kind of way.

She caught a glimpse of her Captain walking around and perked up as he backtracked, having also caught sight of her and nearly walking past. They went to meet each other; Dani offering a lazy wave as greeting.

“Good to see you up and about, sir”, Dogma nodded, a relieved smile clear in his voice. “Feeling better?”

“Morning. Yeah, not at 100%, but there’s no risk of fainting”, she shrugged sheepishly.

“I’m glad. Yesterday you were… pretty out of it”, he gestured as if to scratch his hair, but his fingers instead collided with his helmet. He scratched nonetheless.

“Ah. Why, did I say something weird? Did we have a bonding moment?”

She had said it as a joke, but the silence between them stretched in a strange manner.

“…Nah, you just said that Venus and I make a good couple.”

“Oh. OH”, she blurted out, totally thrown off her rhythm. “Well, so, hum. Will you ask her out or what?”

“No!”, he exclaimed, horrified. “Hells, no! I mean—“, he corrected himself when Dani crossed her arms and tilted her head angrily. “Of course I would like! But it’s not _proper_! I’m her CO, and there’s a war going on, and—”

“Just take it”, she cut him.

“…Take what?”

“The chance at happiness! Take it! Be selfish for once in your life!”, she rose her hands in the air and let them drop against her thighs, clapping loudly in exasperation. “You just said it: it’s war! You have no idea if tomorrow you’ll still have what you have today. You have the opportunity of being happy and making Venus happy and you just… _won’t_?”

Another silence stretched between them.

“…I would like to change subject now”, the Captain deadpanned.

“Alright”, she sighed, defeated. “Alright, sorry I overstepped.”

“It’s fine. Thanks for dropping it.”

“So… How’s your night as Head of Internal Affairs has been? Anything exciting?”

“Not at all, sir”, Dogma reported, tone returning to the cheerfulness it carried when he was doing his job well and enjoying it. “Talked to General Billaba and we agreed to stay put until you woke up. The men were informed and duties issued; and here we are. I was just finishing my rounds when I saw you. Any news on Shades and Ian?”

“Ian’s still asleep. Shades too. For what Laa’ka told me; he is better, for now.”

“…I see. Well; I guess General Billaba will want to speak to you as soon as possible.”

“Yeah. Let’s.”

They walked together, being greeted by 0thers and regarded with something akin to awe by some of Depa’s men.

“…What’s with them?”, she whispered to her Captain.

“You do remember that yesterday you shared your Force-sight with _everybody_ , right?”

“Ah. It’s true”, she realized.

She was about to inquire more about it, but they walked past a tree and almost tripped on Caleb.

“Whoops! Sorry, you okay?”, Dani blurted in auto-pilot.

It then dawned on her, when she noticed the shear fear in the boy’s eyes, what the Padawan had done the day before. But before she could take in air to say hello, he ran away, leaving them in the dust.

“Caleb!”, she called after him. “Why are you running?!”

“He’s being having trouble with… coming to terms with his actions”, Depa explained softly, emerging from the command tent. “Please, give him a bit more time. He’ll come around.”

“As long as he doesn’t get into trouble”, Ducky shrugged.

The older woman gave her an appreciative nod and invited them inside with a gesture of her arm. Commander Grey was there, overlooking the map of their possible routes and discussing it with the scouts.

“General!”, Raven greeted her cheerfully. “How was your beauty-sleep?”

“Too much beauty, not enough sleep”, she huffed, amused.

The ARF snorted loudly, making an effort to compose himself in front of his peers. To his defence: they were snickering too.

“General”, Grey nodded at her. “Thank you. For what you did”, he offered reverently.

“Ah, uh—It was no trouble. The least I could try to do in that situation”, she offered back.

Being thanked felt good but weird to her. But she had long ago learned that refusing thanks made the other person uncomfortable, so there she was.

“We already informed the Jedi Council of our delay”, Depa went straight to business. “They insist that we complete our mission as soon as possible.”

“Shades and Styles should get an evac”, Ducky stated, crossing her arms loosely.

“Already considered; but we are too close to the enemy base. They would detect the transports and realise our presence”, Dogma explained.

“Don’t they already know we are here? They threw a fucking missile at us!”

“They don’t know we survived”, Depa pointed out.

“Let’s get this over with, then”, she huffed. She tapped her feet against the ground. She wasn’t a fan of rushing through things, but now she had a reason to.

“With our planned route, we could be there in 8 to 12 hours”, Grey started, gesturing to the projected map with several paths marked. “But after yesterday’s incident, we have mapped out some other routes that we think more secure. We have this one, that borders the mountain ridge and would take us about two days and a half to get to our destination, or this one; travelling through patches of forest, which leaves us more exposed and would take us about a day…”

Dani chewed her lip nervously. Last thing she wanted was to spend more time than necessary on this planet.

“If they think we are dead there’s no reason as to why we should be more careful”, she said haltingly.

“…You might be right, sir”, Commander Grey started slowly, suddenly wary. “But—”

“It would leave the men more at ease”, Dogma completed without fanfare.

“Ah. Yes. You are right. Sorry, I’m getting angsty about this. But you’re right.  I would rather the forest route, though.”

“I agree. It’s faster than the alternative, and still offers more refuge than our original choice”, Depa nodded. “Thoughts, gentlemen?”

“Looks good to me”, the Captain nodded.

“Yeah; I’m not very fond of this planet either…”, Grey tried to chuckle, but didn’t come out quite right. “What about our injured, Generals?”

They exchanged a quick look.

“We should leave them here to rest. I do not think it would be good for Styles to move with his cracked ribs, and being out in the cold could worsen Shades’ condition”, Billaba offered first; a much calmer version of what Ducky wanted to say.

Dani nodded vigorously.

“Let’s leave an escort with them, and have their evac sent as soon as we are done with our assault.”

“I suggest six men to make sure they can take turns and be well-rested in case anything happens. I would recommend leaving Apollo too, but we might need him in the aftermath of the confrontation…”, Dogma mused.

The others pursed their lips.

“…Apollo has to come with us”, the younger General nodded. “Have him choose a couple troopers with specific instructions as to how to treat them in the direst of cases for them to stay. We should start rounding our troops up.”

“Yessir!”, Dogma saluted swiftly, and left.

“Will Caleb be coming?”, she asked Depa.

The Jedi Master sighed sorrowfully.

“I’ll talk to him and come back to you. If he is deemed a liability, we’ll leave him here.”

“I would like to come with you, if that’s alright”, she requested awkwardly. “I need to make it clear that I’m not going to murder him on sight…”

“I’m sure that would do him some good”, she tried smiling. “Let’s find him.”

 

With Ducky’s Force-sight, that goal was effortless. She let Depa approach him first, not wanting him to run away again. They talked quietly for a while until the Jedi called her forward.

Caleb’s eyes went wide again and he made as if to flee, but collided against Stance in his haste to step backwards.

“Calm down, geez”, Dani huffed. “I won’t be laying a hand on you”, she tried to reassure him through the frustration she felt.

Truth is, Caleb and Aleluia were pretty alike, and it hurt her to see fear in those eyes.

Just like Depa resembled—

“I wanted to thank you”, she said before anyone else could speak up or her thoughts spiral further.

The young Padawan jerked, blinking at her in surprise and confusion.

“Thank you for pulling my men to safety”, she elaborated.

He jerked again.

“I left you”, he blurted out, lip quivering. “I left you and Shades. I didn’t even consider saving you!”, he cried, enraged with himself.

“And that stings, sure”, she shrugged, staring at the nothingness for a second. “But you were under pressure and you did the best with what you had. Which is more than what I could have done in your situation.”

Dume stared at her for a long, tense moment, cluelessness and confusion and anger welling behind his eyes.

“WHY DON’T YOU HATE ME?!”, he cried out.

“Because you are a _KID_!”, she cried back, with no bite to it: just exasperation.

Caleb was left breathing hard, still staring at her as Stance gently gripped his shoulder, trying to bring him back to his senses.

“Look, the thing is: nobody died. You did your best. Nobody here is going to hate you. So please stop hiding from me and my men and your friends, because we need you with us.”

She hushed, in case he wanted to say something, but he just kept breathing.

“I’m going to tell my troops that we are moving out. See you later?”, she asked to the other General.

“We’ll be there”, she nodded.

 

When Ducky returned to the tent that held Shades, she found Ian fussing over him.

“Dani”, he acknowledged, a small sigh of relief escaping his chapped lips. “What’s the news?”

“We’re moving out”, she said, moving to grab her discarded backpack.

“…I see. Give me ten to have something to eat and grab my things, I’ll—”

“You are staying.”

They held their gazes for a moment. Ian’s were wide in surprise, but Dani’s were mostly apathic.

“Sir, I—”

“I don’t care that you think you can do this. You don’t _have_ to”, she interrupted him, concern bleeding into her expression. “Shades is down. And you know it. And if you come with us you’ll be thinking about him all the time, and you won’t even notice what’s in front of you”, she sighed, and took several steps to kneel beside her Commander, gently taking his hand. “You have covered for me _so many times_ , Ian. Let me cover for you just this once.”

He cast his eyes down, tempted to accept the offer. But duty had been ingrained deep in him, and he couldn’t help but try to argue. Before he could even articulate a syllable, though, Dani went on.

“You are a great sentinel. You can keep everybody safe until the evac comes”, she squished his hand tenderly.

When Ian tried to make eye contact to see if it was an order, he found that she was blinking at their hands. He took a moment to gulp down the knot on his throat.

“Okay. Okay. You go with Dogma, yeah? Stick together”, he said, suppressing a sniff.

“Of course”, she offered a sad smile at him, slowly pulling him to her for a hug.

“Somebody has to keep an eye on you.”

“Yeah, yeah”, she chuckled quietly, patting his back twice. “…We should tell Dogma.”

He didn’t need clarification.

“Yeah. Yeah, we should”, he exhaled tiredly.

Somebody cleared their throat behind them.

“Apollo”, Ian greeted, rubbing his eyes. “They are leaving—”

“They? The Captain told me I’m going too”, the medic said, sending a questioning look at Dani’s way.

“Yeah. We need you there in case we get more injured.”

“What about Shades…!”, the Commander countered tightly.

“I’m leaving him with all the antibiotics he could need, _vod_. I’ve written down instructions and doses. Even if I stayed here, there wouldn’t be much else that I could do to help them…”

“…Alright”, Ian sighed, insecure. Ducky pulled him into another hug and he clung to her for a long moment, burying his face on her neck. She kissed the top of his head lovingly, until his grip slacked and he pulled away. “You should… you should pack up.”

“Yeah”, she replied softly, and slowly moved to do so.

After a few trips to get everything sorted and get her laser stick back from Raven, she was back in the tent to stuff her blanket into her backpack; and then she heard her Commander’s strained but relieved voice.

“Shades.”

She turned around immediately, eagerly crawling her way to them.

The CMO was blinking hazily at them, head turning minutely as he let out an exhausted grunt.

“Hey there”, Dani smiled, a tear of relief dropping to the ground.

They each latched onto one of his hands, doing an effort to wait patiently for him to be more aware of his surroundings.

Shades closed his eyes, but his breathing gave away that he was still awake. A few minutes later, he opened them again, this time with more clarity.

“’ni. I’n. W’ha ‘pn’ed…?”, he slurred, trying to raise his head.

Both COs put their free hands over his chest to keep him there.

“There was an avalanche. Do you remember?”, Ian spoke softly.

Shades frowned at the ceiling of the tent for a long moment before working to swallow, and then turned minutely to Ducky.

“Told you you’d… find us…”, he breathed out, a small smile flickering on his face.

“You absolute _bastard_ ”, she sobbed. “If you ever pull that shit again I’m killing you myself…!”

“S’okay…”, he sighed, making an effort to lift a hand to pat Dani’s hair. “’prom’sed I’d stay, hm? ‘m stayin’. ‘m stayin’.”

His hand slowly sank, and he fell back asleep. She leaned over him and kissed his forehead, earning a weak noise of contentment from him.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come…?”, Ian asked again when she pulled back.

“I’m sure”, she replied quietly. “You take care of him, yeah? I’ll see you home”, she offered him a smile, and spread her arms a bit in invitation.

The Commander accepted the hug, gripping her tightly for a moment.

“You be careful out there.”

“Will be”, she promised, kissing his cheek one last time before pulling away and picking up her backpack and helmet. “Take care!”

“You too.”

And with that, she left the tent, heading for where the troops were already gathered, ready to move.

“Where’s Commander Ian?”, Depa asked.

“He’s staying.”

“But—”, Grey started.

“They are batchmates”, Dogma added.

“Oh.”

They moved out.

 

The trek had a different air to it now. Everyone was more on edge, casting wary glances at the mountains. Ducky’s pace was brisk and she barely made any attempt at conversation.

Dogma sighed quietly. He wasn’t dumb: he had understood long ago that Ian and Shades were important pillars in her life, and now either of them were with her to reassure her. Maybe that lack of stability was why she was drifting away from Master Billaba, just like she had tried to do when they met. It kinda stung. That she wouldn’t go to him in her own volition. After all she had done for him, why did she think he wouldn’t extend a helping hand to her? _No, no_ , he backtracked, remembering a conversation with Breeze that they had after a few sessions.

_“I think she doesn’t trust me”, he had admitted, eyes cast down._

_“She’s been hurt a lot. Or she’s been hurt once, and she’s still hurting”, they had shrugged. “It’s not your fault, Dogma. And it’s not personal. I think that if you keep being a steady presence by her side, she will eventually open up to you.”_

Honestly, he was tired of being the one doing the effort. It reminded him too much of how things were before Umbara… But truth is, lots of things had happened after that. Bad and… good.

He blushed under his helmet, just thinking about Venus and how breath-taking she looked wielding a lightsabre, how kind and calm and funny an—

He stopped himself there, taking a steadying breath. Well, at least that had left him in a good mood. Good enough to do the effort of socializing.

“Dani”, he called quietly, and saw her startle out of her thoughts.

Her helmet turned to him jerkily.

“Yeah?”, her voice was weak from not speaking for a long time, and so she hurried to clear her throat.

“You… look tense”, he carefully chose his words, intending to say something that she couldn’t deflect or dismiss.

“…I guess, yes.”

“You’re worried about Shades?”, he continued prodding, voice soft in sympathy.

“Who isn’t?”, she shrugged, sadness clear in her tone and gesture.

“He’s in good hands. Ian will take care of him.”

“Yeah…”

“But it’s not that”, he continued.

The General perked up, turning to look at him from where her eyes had drifted to the snow under her boots.

“That worries you, but doesn’t make you _tense_ ”, he punctuated, and left it at that, but didn’t look away from her.

He kept staring as Dani sulked for a while and almost stepped away from him. She turned her helmet to the sky. He saw her gulp down hard.

“…Promise not to tell?”, she whispered, not as in about to share a pitiful secret, but as if to plead for release while not feeling safe about it.

“I promise”, he nudged her quietly.

“It’s Depa.”

“…What about her?”

He heard her take in a shaky breath, could almost imagine the tears welling in her eyes.

“She reminds me of my mother.”

Her mother. The mother that had been dead for almost a decade now. The mother she never spoke about, apart of to inform somebody that she was dead and make clear that it was a sore subject. The mother that only Ian mentioned during the Hour of Remembrance.

“Shit, Dani”, he spoke with great feeling, taking a side-step to loop his arm around her shoulders and pull her into a half-hug. “No _kirffing_ wonder that you reacted like that when you met her—”

“Please don’t leave me alone with her”, she begged in a quick whisper.

“I won’t! I won’t.”

In that situation Dogma felt guilty that, perhaps, that was his chance to finally win her trust over.

 

Ducky did relax as their march progressed, accepting him as her support. The Captain was still in shock: he _knew_ she had been alone with Depa and Caleb their first night on planet and now… Now he was overthinking how she must have felt. Not horrible, he guessed: because she had seemed pretty cheerful when they had returned. But, despite being an open book most of the time; he was also aware than Dani could be too good at hiding her emotions or carefully redirecting conversations.

“Did you learn something new with the ‘saber, the other day?”, he tried, feeling pretty proud about his choice-words.

“Hm? Oh, not much. I mostly answered Caleb’s questions. Man: remind me to never get a Padawan…”

“Not that you can, since you aren’t a Jedi”, he reminded her playfully, earning an amused huff.

“Anyways.”

“So you won’t teach Aleluia?”

It had been quite shocking, when that piece of information had reached him. And alarming. A vod, adopted by a woman they barely knew anything of? The worst outcomes popped up in his mind immediately. But Pedal had noticed his distress and calmly talked about how the _vod’ika_ was living in the Jedi Temple because he turned out to be Force-sensitive and, well… Scum _could_ come out and be prowling around the Temple, but it was supposed to be, overall, a good place.

_Away from the war and the Kaminoans_ , the pilot had sighed with a mix of longing and relief. And Dogma couldn’t help but agree.

“I’m totally NOT qualified”, she laughed nervously, replying to his question. “I’m leaving that to whoever wants to teach him. And whoever he wants to learn from.”

“Do you ever…? Do you ever think that you would have preferred to stay with the Order? Rather than going to Kamino?”

“And have High Command AND the Jedi Council breathing down my neck? And _prying_ about my personal relationships? No thanks”, she waved with a quick flick of her wrist. “I love my son and girlfriend very much, thank you.”

Dogma chuckled at that and the honest sigh that escaped her.

“You’ll make us jealous, sir.”

“I love you all a lot too!”, she added quickly, making the Captain’s laugh louder. “What’s so funny?”

“It just… It comes out a little weird, it’s all. But it’s sweet.”

“Huh. You know you can’t tell me if you’d rather I don’t say those things, right? I won’t be mad or anything—”

“No, no!”, he placated her with a slight shake of his free hand. “I was just, uh, messing with you, sir. That’s all”, he clarified, turning to look forwards.

“Good”, she smiled under her own helmet.

 

That night, after a quick game of UNO to try and relax or at least steam off a bit, they slept side by side, holding onto each other.

 

Luckily, the rest of the journey was uneventful. No missiles, and all prove-droids were spotted before-hand and avoided. The enemy base was near; between 3 and 4 kilometres from where they were setting up their final camp before the raid, deep into the forest that surrounded their objective. They rested, made final check-ups and glossed over the intel and plans and schematics, and off they went. Depa’s men were supposed to take care of most of it. The 0th was there as support, anyways; just to add more bulk to the attack force and secure the objective.

It was comforting, in a routine kind of way. It felt nice to not be fighting an enemy within for once. Just good ol’ shooting at droid—

The proverbial jazz music in Dani’s mind stopped as she tripped over herself and sputtered when a familiar and very welcome Force-signal that SHOULD TOTALLY NOT BE THERE entered her range from a flank.

“Sir?”, Dogma questioned, tensing up; and causing a chain reaction as everybody turned to see why she stopped. “What is it?”

“I, uh”, she wanted to say _nothing_ , but it wasn’t _nothing_ , and anyways it was the stupidest answer ever, but she also didn’t want the troops and the Jedi trying to check out the presence, and _oh god—_ “just noticed… the presence of an informant of mine…”, she articulated.

“Within the base?”, Depa questioned.

“No, out…”

“And you want to check it out?”, it was more of a statement than a question, but Depa was being very polite about it.

“I mean, uh, I should; it MUST be important, because if not I don’t know what she’s doing here…!”, Dani went on, increasing hysterics clear in her voice.

“I’ll come with you—”, Dogma was offering.

“No no, I have to meet my contacts alone!”, she replied too quickly. She noticed her Captain’s flinch, and knew that the refusal had hurt. “I mean—I don’t know how long it will be; if I have to go I would rather you stay in command…”

“We’ll wait for you here, then; and come for you if you are not back in twenty”, General Billaba declared.

“Don’t you want to, uh, carry on and I’ll join you as soon as I can?”

This was getting weird and uncomfortable, even for her standards.

“Your contact may have vital information regarding our assault. We will wait”, the elder insisted, an eyebrow arched at her strange behaviour.

“…Alright. Alright”, Dani accepted that she wouldn’t get anything better, awkwardly backing up. “I’ll be back. Don’t follow me!”

She Force-sprinted towards the limit of the range of the Force-sight.

 

“Naai!”, she called out when she was about the reach her dot. “Naai’na’ra!”

“Ducky!”, she gasped, leaning over the trunk of a tree, mandibles spasming quickly wider and wider into what was an excited smile. “Thanks the Force you are here! I have been walking for _days_ and standing around the snow in the same place for _hours_ hoping that you would notice me—”

She was interrupted as Dani flung herself at her, hugging her tightly and tilting her head up to search for her face. Naai reached down to meet her, clinging back as they inhaled each other’s breaths and basked in their touch.

Ducky took a deep, stressed breathe and pulled away.

“What are you doing here?! Where’s your escort?!”

“I had to come alone”, she replied in a hasty whisper. “Otherwise they would have realised I’m here”, she continued, a troubled frown heavy in her features.

“Who?”

“Count Dooku of Serenno.”

The air turned even colder, if that was possible. Dani froze, eyes wide.

“Ducky, Dooku knows the 0th is here! It’s a trap! For YOU!”

“My men”, she gasped, clutching the wrist of the hand Naai was resting on her shoulder. She frantically expanded her Force-sight, but the troops were at the very edge of it and she couldn’t tell clearly if they were droids near or if it was her paranoia—

She slapped her wirstcomm.

“DOGMA!!!”

“Sir! Wha—“, the Captain immediately replied, alarmed.

“They know we are here!!! Dooku’s onto us!”

“Copy that, General!”, his voice was hard, controlled. “We’ll—”

He had been about to go on, but the sound of blaster fire grew in the background.

“We’re under fire! Orders?!”

“Hold your position or follow Depa! I’ll be there ASAP!”

The connection cut and Dani jerked, heart thundering behind her ribs and mind a blur as she turned to leave.

“Ducky!”, Naai called tightly, gripping her wrist back. “I know it’s not the best moment, but… Take this”, she said, pulling something wrapped in a thick cloth and handing it to her.

 Dani blinked at it, dazed by the adrenaline coursing through her veins, but she quickly unwrapped it, revealing a dagger made of some sort of black mineral, reflecting the light as if covered in polish and its handle made of the same material with an iridescent mineral coiling in a spiral around it.

“We said we would give each other gifts”, Naai’na’ra elaborated. “I had this made specially for you.”

“Aw, babe”, Luna couldn’t help but coo. The dagger was _beautiful_. “You know me SO well…! But… I didn’t bring anything for you…”

“Aw, larvae… Slick passed me the photo. You gave me our son”, she shook her head, eyes bright behind her protective googles. “Now go. I hope we meet again soon.”

“I love you”, Ducky breathed out, storing the dagger in her backpack and going for a quick kiss before sprinting away.

“Stay safe!”

“You too!”

 

They were already engaged. She could tell the spots apart clearly as she ran closer. They were retreating, but it seemed strategic. But somebody was straying behind… Venus and Dogma and some mix of shinnies from the 0th and Depa’s group, and the veterans seemed to be steering them to the safety of the thickness of their numbers. The rookies started trickling towards the main force, with the other two right behind them—

A new Force-presence, dimmed but also strangely nagging appeared after them.

“Fuck!”, Ducky spat, and swerved on the snow to head for them, strides so fast that it was a miracle that she didn’t trip with her own gear.

 

Dooku took a superhuman step to swipe at Venus, but Dogma tugged her out of the way. They both stumbled, trying to get out of his range. The temptation to shoot at him was strong, but they were armed with blasters and the risk of the Sith reflecting the bolts was too great. The only thing they could do was try and dodge whatever he threw at them—

He had no idea how he knew it, but suddenly Dogma was sure that Dooku was about to Force-grab Venus. Everything around him seemed slow, too slow, and there was no way she could get away of it, not when she was busy shooting a droid that had tried to flank one of the shinnies ahead of them, and he couldn’t _bare_ the idea of seeing her trapped in his grip—

So he planted his feet and sprung sideways, tackling her to safety as the invisible hand tightened around him.

“DOGMA!”, she cried out, scrambling to right herself from where she had fallen on the ground.

The Captain lost his grip on his weapon as he struggled against the supernatural assault, panic clawing at him as images of Krell flashed in front of his eyes.

“I would put that down if I were you”, the Count spoke as if talking about a teaspoon and not a blaster, completely unbothered as he held the gasping clone within his reach. “Not that it really matters…”, he extended the arm holding his red lightsabre, ready to cut the soldier in two with an uncaring, cruelty simple gesture.

“No!”, Venus tightened her grip on her weapon. The possibility that if she shot she might hit Dogma was overwhelming, but if she did nothing he was going to die—

Dooku’s eyes widened and he tensed, turning to face a phantom menace.

“Stop right there!”, he called out, his ‘saber moving to hover over Dogma’s neck, but not threatening with an immediate kill.

Venus glanced in the direction he was looking and saw Dani skidding to a halt, chest heaving as she stared between the Count and Dogma.

“So…”, the Sith spoke, all pomposity and theatrics. “General Luna of the 0th, I presume?”

She didn’t grace him with a reply, just a snarl that he could not see. The atmosphere became so dense Venus thought she was going to suffocate, even with her own oxygen supply activated.

“I have heard things of you. Mostly ghost stories… You have cost us quite an amount of good Generals.”

“What do you want?”, she snarled.

“Oh, why; just to get to know the myth better, of course! I must say, I am _impressed_ with your assassination skills.”

Dani glanced at Dogma, still struggling and apparently in respiratory distress.

“You wanna talk? Let him go.”

“I’m afraid you wouldn’t stay to listen to me if I did that.”

“Get to the point, then”, she grumbled, making a notorious effort to bite back her sharpest replies. Angering the old man wouldn’t do any good to her or her Captain.

“It is quite simple: I see the spark of potential within you. All I do is offer you a greater power, yours to get whatever you could desire… _if_ you swear loyalty to me and become my Apprentice.”

She wanted to scream. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry. Goddamn Siths and Jedis and their stupid rules—She wanted to say _No thanks_ so badly. She wanted to bitch bout the Two Sith Rule and how it was very unappealing to possible candidates in her opinion. She wanted to say that the only thing she wanted right now was to have Dogma back, but all those answers were a sure ticket to having him killed.

She had been slashed by Grievous. Ian had been impaled by Ventress. She didn’t want Dogma to be cut by Dooku.

So she took a deep breath to steady her limbs and mind, and chanted _Open eyes, cold mind, warm heart; open eyes, cold mind, warm heart—_ until the world around her became clear.

“I think you are in for a surprise”, she smirked, and slowly moved her hands towards her helmet.

Dooku tensed, his lightsabre edging closer to Dogma’s neck enough to scald it. He gritted his teeth against the pain, trying to see what was she doing through the corner of his wide eyes.

Ducky’s helmet hit the ground, and the Count’s eyes widened in delight.

Her eyes were a vivid yellow as she stared right at him, and just for show, she rose a hand and let electric sparks glitter and sputter around her finger tips.

“An advantaged pupil, I see”, he nodded, pleased, as he folded his hands behind his back, his Force-hold not easing a bit.

“I have a flaw, though”, she hummed, raising her chin to stare down at him.

Venus perked up from her frozen position.

“I’m sure we’ll be able to strengthen whatever defect you hold, my dear”, Dooku drawled.

“Oh, no no”, she waved her hands in front of her with a sheepish smile. “That’s the issue. I’m _too_ strong.”

She jerked her palms up, a shock wave rocking everything around them; making the trees shake and the closest trunks splinter with a hair-curling bang as millennial trees tilted threateningly.

The Count had followed the vibration of the trees up and saw, terrifyingly clearly, how tons and tons of accumulated snow in the top of the tallest trees started falling towards them.

Taking advantage of his startled state, Venus shot at the Sith’s leg, hitting his calf. His concentration faltered and with it the grip he had on the Captain, and then Dogma was coughing and stumbling away from his reach as the Count cried out in pain. Venus went to reach for him, but even before she could take two steps Ducky was coming up from behind him, swooping him up with an arm hooked under his armpits and barrelling towards her just to do the same with her free arm; Force-running for their lives as the snow descended from the altitude.

The yellow in her eyes disappeared spontaneously.

From behind them, Dooku snarled, but did not attempt to pursuit; instead focusing on stopping the tones of frozen water falling on him.

Dani ran to the group, zooming past trees and stray droids that let out a surprised exclamation before they noticed the looming shadows and looked up to meet their white end.

“It’s the General!”, Raven cried out when she spotted her, and the line of clones opened to let her pass as she tried to dig her feet into the ground, but instead slipped and ended up rolling on the floor, getting separated of Dogma and Venus.

“Luna!”, Grey called from somewhere above her, extending a hand to help her up.

She toom it without hesitation and staggered to her feet, breathing hard; and looked around to see that her friends were being helped in a similar way.

“What’s the situation?”, she asked the Commander.

“The intel centre is _way_ more guarded than we thought! Master Billaba and Caleb are holding the line while we retreat! Unless your contact had something useful for us?!”

Not ideal, mission-wise, but she wasn’t going to complain.

“Nothing”, she panted, shaking her head. “If we’re leaving I’m calling the evac for Shades and Styles.”

“Already done, sir!”

“Good”, she nodded, relieved. “Take everyone to safety, I’ll help the Jedis!”

“Yessir!”, the Commander saluted quickly.

And with that, they parted ways.

 

It was a couple hours later when everybody walked tiredly towards the transports, most of them staggering and willing to kill for a hot shower. Dogma was surrounded by the whole 0th as they all offered their presence as comfort for what he had experienced. The Captain had managed to calm down considerably, but he still spaced out if left alone. Dani had walked up to him as soon as she could, dropping to her knees in front of the crate he was sitting on and hugging him tightly while Venus grasped his shoulders.

“I’m okay”, he had said shakily. “I’m okay.”

“I’m sorry I left”, she had mumbled into his shoulder, heavy with guilt and shame. “I should have stayed—”

“No”, Venus cut her. “No, if you had stayed we wouldn’t have seen Dooku coming. And, despite what happened, I’d say Dogma and I were doing pretty good”, she patted his shoulder, and he looked up at her to offer an unsteady smile.

“Yeah. Yeah, alright”, Dani had huffed, and caught a glimpse of Depa over her shoulder. “You should load up, get cosy. I just have to take care of something and we’ll be leaving.”

“Alright. Let’s go”, Venus nudged the Captain, taking one of his arms to lead him towards one of the gunship’s seats.

Ducky took a deep breath, steeling herself, and walked up to Depa.

“General Luna”, she greeted her when she noticed them, her attention and the Commanders’ turning to her. “It is a pity that we couldn’t achieve our objective, but at least we didn’t suffer major losses. I’ll look forward to our next assignment together”, she bowed respectfully.

But it fell flat on her uncomfortable silence.

“…That’s what I wanted to talk to you about”, Ducky rubbed the back of her head, looking away for a moment before taking another deep breath and staring into Depa’s eyes. “Due to personal reasons, I’m going to request not to be involved in operations with you.”

The shock was so great that everybody blinked at leaned back.

“That does not mean that the 0th won’t offer you support”, she quickly clarified. “But that another CO will be leading if the situation arises, and I’ll be left on the side-lines. In the same manner, if Internal Affairs ever has to conduct an investigation on your battalion, you can officially request that I am not involved in it.”

“But—But why?!”, it was Stance from all of them who sputtered, the others still mute in disbelief. “I thought we worked all so well!”

“And we all did”, she nodded, “As I said: it’s a personal reason, and it’s no-one’s fault but mine and mine alone”, she tried to reassure them.

“The sorrow”, Depa muttered in realisation, thankfully avoiding a burst of confused anger form one of the men. “I… I make you hurt.”

At that, the troopers finally snapped out of their offense, staring between the sadness in the Generals’ eyes.

“It’s not your fault”, Ducky tried to smile.

“I apologize nonetheless”, she said with a shallower bow. “Farewell, General. I hope you’ll heal someday. May the Force with you.”

“May the Force be with you”, she said back slowly, shoulders slumping. “Take care of each other.”

Without another word, she turned and walked away towards her larty.

 

After dumping her cold gear and taking a quick shower to make sure she was warmed up (she had stayed there longer than she meant to and still would have stayed longer, but there would be time for other showers), she headed for the medbay at a brisk pace, jogging at the long corridors that currently seemed endless. She was ready to just drop and curl into a ball and sleep for two days, but she couldn’t. Not yet.

She stepped into the medbay quietly, finding Apple sitting on a stool and pointing her towards the back with a simple gesture. She mouthed a _Thank you_ to him and walked further, carefully pulling the curtain aside and ducking behind it.

Shades was laid out in bed: a brown and a deep-green blanket tucked around him and a nebulizer encasing his mouth and nose, delivering antibiotics to fight the pneumonia that had settled in while they waited for evac. Ian was asleep sitting on his bedside, arms crossed over the mattress and head buried between them as he snored lowly.

Ducky carefully walked up to them and sat on the other side of the bed, taking in Shades’ appearance. She really wanted to touch him: to reassure herself that he was at least warmer than how she had left him, but she didn’t want to wake him up if he was resting; so her hand just hovered mid-way to his cheek, fingers flexing in doubt.

Maybe she had projected again, because his eyes fluttered open.

“Hi…”, she greeted softly with an anxious smile.

“Hi…”, he croaked back, blinking at her before eyeing her hovering hand.

She slowly cradled his cheek and hair, leaving her hand there when he leaned into it and practically used it as a pillow, despite the pair he already had.

“How are you feeling?”

“Could be… worse”, he replied, eyes closed and breathing deep and slow. “You…?”

“I’m good. Glad to finally be out of the snow.”

“Same”, he smiled faintly under the mask.

“When you’re feeling better, I’m making _Kare Kare_. All for you.

“All?”

“Yes, all.”

“Won’t everybody be… mad?”

“Mad? At you? Come on: you have everybody eating out of your hand!”, she smiled fondly, earning a weak chuckle from him.

“Perks… of having saved everyone’s life… at least once…”

“Yeah man: you hold quite a position of power in this ship.”

Shades chuckled a bit more before he seemed to notice a presence on his other side, and slowly turned his head to look at it.

“He’s still here…?”, he grumbled.

“It looks like it.”

“I’ll never… marry him off like this…”

It was Dani’s turn to chuckle

“You take care of him, yeah? While I’m… While I’m laid out…”

“Of course”, she reassured him, grabbing one of his hands with her free one and squishing it. “And you let us take care of you too, alright?”

“`Right”, he hummed, closing his eyes again and leaning further into her hand. “Dani”, he blurted out suddenly, with the urgency of someone who almost forgot something important.

“Yeah?”

“I’m staying. I’m staying with you…no matter what…”, he sighed, falling back asleep.

“…I know, Shades”, she sniffed, gulping down hard. “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want y'all to know that the talk about the Star Wars planets having a stright axis is totally made up, I HAVE NO SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE TO SUPPORT IT, I only wanted to bitch about it!!! (and give another reason as to why Earthlings would be space orcs or something)
> 
> I guess I really gave Dogma a girlfriend, huh?
> 
> If you like this story, please consider sharing it with your freinds/followers!


	49. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Sarcasm ON*   
> A death that NONE of you could have EVER expected  
> *Sarcasm OFF*

Ducky poured the tiny bag of seeds she had bought into a small tupperware and carefully tucked into her space-backpack.

“Still two years, _ni_ ”, Lian reminded her softly.

“I know, I know!”, she quickly said, waving a hand. “But if I don’t get things as I think of them I’m gonna forget them!”

“Hm”, her mother hummed, walking closer to peek inside the bag. “I’d say you have the essentials and more: water, dried food, flashlight, a few fancy things to exchange for currency, medical supplies… What’s that? Movies?”

“Yeah! The journey’s gonna be long, right? We might get bored.

“ _Ni_ , we’re not taking a CD player with us”, the woman said, an eyebrow arched in amusement.

“Oh.”

“Exactly”, she laughed gently, and carefully extracted the cases from Ducky’s backpack, leaving them besides it. “There. Now your toothbrush will definitely fit”, she rested her hands on her hips with a satisfied nod. It followed with a couple coughs and a sniff.

“And how is _your_ travel pack doing?”, the 14 years old sneered.

“Great! Great. I got extra clothes, penicillin, some other fancy things… A photo of the three of us…”, Lian added, softer, holding up the printed image.

Ducky’s whole demeanour fell away as she inched closer to her mother, who had turned her back on her and now was staring silently at the picture to hug her from behind. She noticed her neck a bit stiff and readjusted to make sure the position was comfortable for both.

“I miss him”, Lian whispered quietly.

“Me too”, Ducky mumbled back. “I miss his _adobo_. It was the best.”

“Are you implying that my _adobo_ isn’t good?”, Lian huffed with fake offense.

“Me? Nooo. I wouldn’t dream of…”

They laughed nostalgically.

They stood like that for a while, until Lian swept a hand over her face to wash away the tears and turn to her daughter, gently stroking her recently cut hair.

“Short hair looks great on you”, she smiled.

“Thanks, _nanay_ ”, she returned a sad smile.

“Now go. You’ll be late for high school”, the woman nudged her softly, stifling a sneeze.

“You stay home, yeah? Take some medicine for this nasty cold”, Ducky prodded, slinging on her school backpack.

“Will do”, her mother reassured her, and leant closer to plant a kiss on her cheek “Have a good day, _ni._ ”

“You too, mom!”, she returned the affection shallowly, and went out the door.

“Luna!” a girl the same age as her waved her over from a bit further down the street.

“Hi, Ivanna!”, Ducky greeted her neighbour, classmate, and probably only friend.

“Do you have all your notebooks? And your pencil case? You promised to help me study after class!”

“If we eat fast we can get it done during lunch break”, she offered, not a fan of studying longer than absolutely necessary.

She _did_ enjoy the time she spent with Ivanna, it was just that—Ducky didn’t know. Because she didn’t like leaving her mother alone; having heard her cry too many times when Lian thought there was no-one around. Because she wasn’t used to having friends. Because she still wished her father’s company above everything else.

“Yeah, surely! You are so good at biology; you’re going to be the best scientist someday!”

“Thanks”, Ducky laughed awkwardly, still unaccustomed to praise from outside her family. “And you’ll be the best chef!”

“That’s for sure! I’ll have my own restaurant, and hang all your papers on the walls!”

“You’re going to kill your customers of boredom before they can even order…”

“I’ll give them the papers when they enter and if they want their food to be served, they have to pass a test!”, Ivanna smiled devilishly.

“…That’s evil.”

“That’s school!”

“That checks out.”

 

The day crawled on. Ducky had taken to stare out the window and up to the sky for some time now. Teachers came and went, hours passed, she explained the bases of the immunologic system to Ivanna between mouthfuls of _kaldereta_ , but there were still some small details that escaped her, so swallowing down a sigh she assured her neighbour that she would stop by her house first so they could get that sorted out before going home for the day.

“I’m going with my friends downtown to this new ice cream shop that has opened! Do you want to come?”

Ducky cast her eyes away, pausing as she shoved one of her notebooks into her backpack.

Ivanna kept offering her things like that. And it was in good intentions, she knew! But being with Ivanna’s other friends she just felt… an outlier.

“…No, thanks. I’ll head home. But I hope you have a good time”, she answered, swinging her backpack on.

“Oh… Well, if you want to join us, we’ll be there until dark, probably!”, she tried to conceive her disappointment with a half-smile.

“I’ll have it in mind. See you tomorrow?”

“See you tomorrow!”, she waved goodbye.

The walk home was incredibly short. She sighed tiredly as she opened the door, trying to plan on a schedule to do her homework and take some breaks, maybe grab some cookies first…

“I’m home!”, she called out loud.

There was no reply, and Ducky was beginning to worry when she remembered that her mother had been feeling ill and maybe she had been sleeping and she just woke her up. The girl winced at herself and tried to keep her steps quiet as she headed for the kitchen, keeping an ear out in case Lian called out to her. But she took a couple steps and didn’t hear even a step, so she guessed she had managed not to wake her up—

She turned a corner towards the living room to grab a couple cookies from the jar on the dinning table, but froze as she caught something out of place from the corner of her eyes, and her head snapped towards it, eyes widening and muscles suddenly locked in place as Ducky took in the image of her mother lying on the ground, next to the small table where they kept their telephone, an arm extended as if she had tried to reach for it.

“… _Nanay_ …?”, she mouthed, but her vocal cords refused to make any noise, just a whine escaping the tightness of her throat. “… _Nanay_?”, she tried again, this time managing to articulate the word.

But from the floor, Lian didn’t move.

“ _Nanay?_ ”, Ducky finally managed to take a shaky step closer, heart trying to hammer its way out of her ribcage and blood rushing to her ears, drowning the other sounds around her. Her backpack slipped from her shoulders and thumped against the floor, but she didn’t hear it. “ _Nanay?!_ ”, she called again, lower lip trembling and panicked tears starting to stream down her cheeks as she dropped to her knees besides her mother’s body.

She cried. She cried, and cried, and wailed, too scared to do anything else than to shake Lian’s corpse and call for her, distraught.

Eventually, somebody went to check what the ruckus was about. Authorities were called. An ambulance took the body to confirm death and perform an autopsy. Ducky was brought along, too; seeing as she was the only relative there. At some point, some neighbours seated themselves on the waiting chairs around her, in the waiting room where she had been dropped by… by… she didn’t even know. She was still trembling, eyes wide but unseeing as she saw past the white-tiled floor, head aching as it tried to process what had happened; _nanay_ wasn’t moving, _nanay_ was pale, _nanay_ was cold—

A doctor came and crouched across her, speaking softly, heartbreak clear in her eyes as she explained the cause of Lian’s death.

_Dead. Nanay is dead._

_Tatay, nanay is dead_

“—father left— Sol Camino—”

“—doesn’t she have living grandpare—”

“—ke her in…?”

“Social services—”

“—orphanage.”

Ducky inhaled sharply, fear spiking again as the word registered.

No, no! She wasn’t an orphan! She had a dad! She had a dad, she swore!

But no words came out of her mouth, her breathing becoming agitated at the new perceived threat. Instead, she slowly slipped out of the room, unnoticed, and then left the hospital, making her way down the road in the twilight.

She didn’t think, just walked and went straight for her home _hers, only hers, mom would never be there again_ —closed the door behind her and went to their space-backpacks, stored with the repaired transmitter _nanay did that, she’s so clever, nanay always figures things out—_ unpacked everything from both bags and grabbed the biggest one _nanay’s, nanay was going to carry the heaviest—_ and repacked. Seeds, water, medicine _penicillin, penicillin, grab the penicillin—_ , spare sets of clothes, fancy stuff to trade it for currency, switchblade—

_“For what your father told me, his homegalaxy is a dangerous place”, Lian had told her once, expression grave. “Slavery goes unchecked, even supported or ignored by most governments.”_

_And Ducky understood._

Her fingers glided over the photo of the tree of them, breath picking up again. Looking at it hurt, _hurt so much_ , but still she took it and pocketed it.

The movies were still there, neatly stacked nearby. She whimpered, biting down on her lip and clawing at her pants. In a surge of desperation, childish denial and pure need for comfort that wouldn’t come from anyone or anything else, she threw away several sets of clothes and packed the CDs.

She zipped the backpack closed and slung it on, grabbed the transmitter and brought it to the garden. She was just about to activate the device when she had a moment of clarity.

She—She was about the leave Earth. The planet. She might never come back. The realization swallowed her like a dark abysm and she trembled, frozen in place. If she stayed, she would be alone. Who knows where she would end up. It would be mostly the same if she left, but in space.

_I’m going to be alone, no matter what I do…_

_NO! No: tatay is out there! I just have to find him and I won’t be alone anymore!_

But—Earth was everything she had ever known. And now, with her ticket to a galaxy far, far away right in front of her, the idea of leaving and never looking back was overwhelming.

She couldn’t—She couldn’t afford to take anything else with her. Her backpack was full. And what would she take? What could she possibly carry always with her and be sure that she wouldn’t ever lose it—

_A tattoo_

The revelation brought relief to her stressed mind, but only for a brief moment. She wasn’t even 15; that wasn’t even near the minimal age to get a tattoo without parental supervision. But that was her only option, so she would have to find someone willing to make an exception.

With stubbornness becoming her main pillar of support, she hid the transmitter and backpack among the plants of the garden and went back into the house, retrieving a stash of cash and pocketing it before heading downtown.

She walked fast through the less crowded streets, fingers flying over her phone as she searched for tattoo shops. It was getting late: she hoped she could catch somebody before they closed for the day.

From the distance, she saw a local with the lights still on and broke into a death sprint for it.

“Wait! Wait!”, she called as she barrelled inside.

A woman with long silky hair pulled into a bun and some age wrinkles over her face blinked at her in surprise, frozen in the act of putting her tools away.

“I want a tattoo!”, Ducky explained between pants as she leaned forward to rest her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath.

“…You’re a kid”, she pointed out, narrowing her eyes at her as she straightened and crossed her arms in front of her.

“I have money!”, she jumped on the defensive.

“It’s closing time.”

“It’s urgent!”

“It’s ILLEGAL”, the woman countered, her tone final. “Now shoo, don’t make me call your parents—”

She had been about to turn away and go on with her business, but caught a glimpse of the trembling, crying form of the teenager at the entrance of her business and froze, unsettled by the reaction.

Normally, rebel kids would talk back or blatantly offer more money for her services, not just—flood her shop with tears.

“Hey. Hey, what’s wrong?”, she approached her carefully, slowly resting a hand on her shoulder as Ducky sobbed.

“M-My _nanay_ d-died today…”

She managed to say, face crumpling even more as grief hit her all over again and she whimpered.

The artist was becoming more clueless at every answer she gave. It could have been a very silly excuse to try and get a tattoo, but the child was absolutely distraught.

“Aw, _ni_. I’m so sorry for your loss…”, she knelt down and brushed her tears away. “I… I know you’re really hurting, but you’re not in your right mind, now. A tattoo is forever; so come back once you’re better with an adult and we can talk abou—”

“There’s no adults!”, she screeched between clenched teeth. Ducky could barely see the face in front of her anymore. “There’s NO ONE!”

“Alright. Alright, come here, sit. You need to calm down. You need to breath. You’re gonna be alright, okay? Just breathe. Slowly. Like that, good. You’re doing well.”

The woman left her a few moments to keep breathing, seated on a high chair.

“What’s your name?”, she asked softly.

“L-Luna.”

“Luna. You can call me Lampas”, she offered. Ducky gave a shaky nod. “Have you run away?”

She nodded again, reluctantly.

“And where will you go? Once you have the tattoo?”

“T-To find _tatay_ ”, she tried to explain, tears sliding out of her eyes again.

“So your father is alive? Where is he?”

“Away”, she whined.

“Can’t you call him? Tell him to come get you?”

Ducky shook her head.

Lampas sighed, looking at her with an uneasy gaze.

“…What do you want a tattoo for?”

“I… I might not be back in a long while. I… I wanted a memento.”

“A memento. From the Philippines?”

Ducky shook her head slowly, and showed her a pic on her phone of a line-art of the planet.

Lampas looked at her straight in the eyes, a cue that she _knew_ deep inside them, but she didn’t comment on the matter. The woman sighed and stood up, resting her hands on her hips.

“Alright. Where do you want it?”

 

A couple hours later, she was covering the tattoo with antiseptic cream and a sheet of plastic film, tapping it on her back.

“Alright. You’re done”, she announced, turning Luna’s stool around to face her. “Now listen to me. _This_ ”, she made a motion to point at her back. “is a wound. You have to treat it regularly for at least a week with this”, she said, passing her a tube of cream, “and you might feel ill at some point. Go see a doctor and tell them about the tattoo if you’re unwell for more than a day. Got it?”

“Got it”, Ducky sniffed with a flashing smile. “Thank you.”

“Just…be careful out there, kid. The universe is a dangerous place”, she ruffled Luna’s hair.

And with that, the Harunn Kalí sent the girl on her way.

 

Ducky activated the transmitter and hunkered down to wait in the chill of the night. She had noticed that her house had been searched (probably the authorities and neighbours looking for her), and hoped that they wouldn’t come back to check anytime soon.

Hours passed, and passed, and passed; and just when she was thinking that she would need to figure out something to pass another day as she waited, a shuttle descended from the sky, landing at the very same spot it had when Sol had left.

She stood up in shaky legs, gulping down as an alien walked down the ramp. She would need to find a way to communicate what she wanted—

“Need any help?”, the alien asked, in a language that, for some reason, she understood perfectly well.

“I—Uh—Need passage? I want go to… Corussanta? Coru—Corsuscanta?”

“Coruscant?”, they asked with a tilt of their head.

Sounded pretty close, so she nodded.

The languid alien crossed their skinny arms.

“And how did you intent do pay for such a long journey?”

“Species”, she replied, and pulled out a bag full of chocolate tablets, offering it to them.

“Is that—?!”, they gasped in surprise, and hurried over to check to contents. “It is!!! Ohhhhhohohohohoho!!!! Come in, come in, young lady! Only the best accommodations we have to offer for you!!! What’s your name?”, they asked, a hand on her back and already steering her towards the shuttle.

“Du—“, she said, but hushed. Ducky _was_ what the people she loved called her. And she reacted to it, but she didn’t want strangers to call her that. Luna was… impersonal. Meant to be her surname, not her name. Maybe she could choose something else. Something that she was also called, but wasn’t so personal. What else was she called?

The last word her mother had said to her rang through her mind like a gunshot.

“—ni”, she mumbled.

“Dani, huh? I like it! Easy to remember!”, the alien patted her back cheerfully.

Dani Luna stepped into the transport.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, fellas, that was the last A long time ago... chapter.  
> No more flashbacks. No more world-building. Shit is about to go down  
> I REPEAT: SHIT IS ABOUT TO GO DOWN. THIS IS NOT A DRILL
> 
> Coming (relativily) soon... Hold Your Breath And Count To Fives


	50. Hold Your Breath And Count To Fives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Y'all know what we're here for

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a soundtrack! Sorta. It's just this to set the mood, really: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLxvlag0cso
> 
> Also, I don't want to scare you but... stay hydrated while reading this chapter  
> uuuhhhh minor spoilers for season 7? nothing too grand  
> Enjoy!

Her phone buzzed, and buzzed, and buzzed.

Dani extracted herself from the tangle of limbs that Shiver, Feather and Match had formed around her, and crawled through the barracks to get to the desk where she had left her phone. Grumbling and stirring started all around, so she hurried to lurch for it and blinked at the screen, vision blurry as sleep tried to glue her eyelids together.

**Incoming call: _EcHology_**

“Huh.”

Weird. The 501st had a knack for getting into trouble, but not enough to call her. She slipped away from the barracks barefoot and wearing her pyjamas, heart clenching at the infinite possibilities of what could be wrong, and answered with a shaky exhale.

“Yes?”

“Dani?”, came Echo’s worried voice.

“Yes”, she sighed, rubbing her eyes. “What’s up?”

“Is it a bad moment? I guess I can—I can call later”, he offered, but it was clear he didn’t want to do that.

“Nobody’s shooting at me, so it’s the best time.”

“It’s—it’s Tup. He’s sick. Like, _very_ sick…”

“What happened?”, she asked, mind sharpening. She leaned to look into the barracks: Shades was sound asleep, wrapped in Ian’s and Apollo’s arms.

“We don’t really know: he was having some bad headaches, and then suddenly he shot General Tiplar! But he didn’t seem to remember that, and he was, like, chanting something under his breath and seemed very out of it—”

“Where’s he now?”, she cut him, noticing the increasing panic in his rambling.

“…Okay, don’t freak out, but the Separatists captured him—”

“WHAT?!”, she freaked out.

“No, no, listen: they got him back! Fives and Rex went with the General to retrieve him!”

“Holy shit. Holy shit! Why did the Seps want him for?!”

“We don’t know; Tup’s now in transit to Kamino, Fives’ with him; we think there they might found out what’s wrong.”

“…Right.”

“I called because—Because there is where he can get the better care, but if, you know… If they refuse to treat him or want to straight up decommission him…”

“Shaak Ti is on this too”, she reassured him immediately, getting a relieved sigh from the other end. “With Fives there and Ti’s position, nobody will be laying a finger on Tup. We’ll make him disappear before that happens, if needed.”

“Right. Right. Shit, thank you, Dan’ika. Thank you.”

“Is there someone there with you?”

“Uh, yeah: Jesse and Kix are nearby. The Captain should be joining us soon.”

“Good. Be with them, okay? Try not to isolate yourself. Keep me updated, will you?”

“Of course.”

“Take care.”

“You too.”

She hung up and just stood there for a moment, breathing shakily and staring at the darkened screen.

“…Dani?”, a voice called from behind there, and she stifled a startled scream.

Dogma blinked at her, also taken aback by the fact that he had caught her off-guard.

“I, uh, heard you swear. Everything alright?”

She stared on for a long moment. It hadn’t even occurred to her to tell him about Tup until she had him before her, but now she knew that she couldn’t hide that from him.

“It was Echo”, she gulped down. “Tup’s so ill that he…”, she stopped a second, debating if she should tell him right away about the homicide thing, but the Captain’s expression was already growing concerned and the need to comfort him became greater. “…he’s being sent to Kamino. Fives’ with him.”

“ _Kriff_ ”, he breathed out, visibly becoming agitated as he swept a hand over his hair, eyes darting around wildly. “What happened? Did he tell you anything else?!”

“He was having headaches. He shot a General and didn’t remember doing it afterwards”, she explained, wincing in concern.

Dogma froze for a moment, horrified.

“Wha—Tup would NEVER do that!”, he jumped to his defence, eyes wide, as if begging her to believe him.

“I know, I know”, she tried to placate him, but the truth is that she too was feeling small in front of that situation, “If he’s sick, maybe he hallucinated—”

“What’s going on?”, Laa’ka yawned, checking on them with an almost angry frown.

“Tup’s sick”, Dani summered up.

“Is it bad?”, the ARCs frown deepened, turning into worry.

“They wouldn’t have called over a cold, Laa’ka”, she huffed.

“Gee, forgive a pal for being worried about a friend!”

Ducky winced. Guess she was more stressed than she was aware of if she couldn’t keep her cool in that situation. She shook her head minutely, trying to focus as she turned to Dogma again.

“Do you want to go with him?”, she offered.

He looked uncertain, hand drifting again to his hair.

“I-I don’t know, I wouldn’t—Wouldn’t want to leave you hanging, I—”

“We’d cover for you”, she reassured him. “That’s why we’re three COs: so if one of us has to deal with something else the whole battalion doesn’t fall to one person’s shoulders.”

“I—“, he still tried, torn. “What would I say when I got there?”

“Whatever you want. I’m giving you a wild card here”, she shrugged.

“Wild card”, a rookie hummed as he exited the barracks towards the refresher. “Now THAT’S a good name!”

“God, not again…”, Dani closed her eyes in an attempt to keep calm.

“HEY, EVERYBODY! I’m Wild Card now!!!”, the shout echoed down the hall.

Cheers rose in response, along with the sound of a bottle of champagne or some other alcohol with gas being popped open.

Ducky huffed in annoyance and grabbed a hold of Dogma’s wrist, steering him in the opposite way. Laa’ka watched them go with a frown, but decided that he would inquire later.

“You can just say you are there for recruiting. Say that I sent you to look for a specific profile and Tup meets it, so it’s in your best interest to know what’s going on with him.”

The Captain nodded at the idea before letting out a dry laugh, not quite meeting her eyes.

“What?”, she asked, worried and irritated in equal parts.

“Nothing”, he finally met her eyes, his smile turning kind of sad. “It’s just… I shouldn’t be surprised that you can come up with convincing lies that easily.”

Dani leaned back in surprise, blinking at him.

“Forget it”, he said before she could articulate a sound, stopping her with a raised hand. “I accept the offer. I’ll pack my things.”

Her mouth twisted downwards in uneasiness.

“I’ll… make sure there’s a ship ready for you.”

He gave her an appreciative nod, and left.

Luna stood there for a moment, fidgeting and frowning at the ground. What was wrong with her? Why was she handling this situation so… awkwardly? Why had a strange dread settled all over her skin?

She walked back to the barracks to pick up the pillows and blankets she had brought to take them back to her room. By the time she got there, most of the troops were up. They must have picked up on her mood, because they gave her space. She went to her room, changed clothes, splashed water over her face. Everything felt… heavy, in the way that anxiety made the world shift uncomfortably. Was it worry? Had the news on Tup’s condition affected her that much? Or was she just… nearing a breakdown?

It happened. It was a cycle. War wears you out, you reach your limit; you get angry or depressed and end up crying. It happened. It would be okay.

Right?

She decided to go to Shades, just in case. He always listened. Or just held her. She would take whatever he had to offer. She walked briskly, holding her own arms against her body, half-hunched forwards and walking by the wall.

“Dani!”, Laa’ka intercepted her.

She glanced at her and kept walking as he fell into step beside her.

“Hey”, he frowned, seeing as his cheerful approach hadn’t gotten even a brief smile in return. “Could you fill me in on Tup?”

“They think it might be something in his head. He had migraines and blackouts. On top of that, Separatist tried to kidnap him”, she replied gruffly, tightening her hold on her arms.

“What?!”

“He’s on Kamino now.”

“ _Kriff_!”, he exhaled. “I mean—Why? Because of the headaches?”

“He killed a Jedi and didn’t remember doing so.”

Laa’ka jerked in astonishment, was almost left behind as Dani kept walking.

“So what? You think they want to, I don’t know: find a way to make that happen to everybody?”

“I don’t know”, she exhaled harshly, wanting to scream.

“Shit, Dani; what’s wrong with you?!”, he bellowed, gripping her arm and pulling to get her to stop. Despite the anger in his voice, his eyes were mostly worried, and confused, and hurt. “I’m asking you about a friend, who is sick, and might be dying, and you won’t even _stop_ to talk to me about it?! What, you’re on your period or something?!”

Ducky scowled at him silently, lips curling into a snarl and chin dipping to glare up at him, heat rising in her cheeks and she didn’t even know if it was shame or rage or—

“Aw, shit”, Laa’ka shook his head in another effort to break the tension, letting go of her. “Shit, did I just say something sexist? I didn’t mean it. I didn’t—Shit!”, he huffed, twirling around and bringing his hands to his head, pressing his fists against hi skull.

Luna recognized his breathing pattern, his effort to calm down; and so she made an effort too.

“I don’t—I don’t think so. I had it two weeks ago, it… It shouldn’t be that”, she exhaled shakily.

“You alright?”, Shades asked, doubling the corner to the medbay corridor. “I heard yelling…”

“Tup’s sick”, Laa’ka was quick to speak. “And something’s wrong with D—”

She had been about to throw herself into the CMO’s arms, to bury her face in his chest and just make herself as small as possible, when her wristcomm chirped loudly.

Urgently.

She answered it without really thinking.

“Ye—”

“BRING YOUR ASS TO THE HANGAR _RIGHT NOW_!”, Ian’s voice thundered.

Dani startled at his tone, near tears.

“What—”

“Quinlan Vos is here with an arrest detail! They are _taking_ Venus!”

There was one eternal second of silence in the corridor. Muscles tensed and locked before their eyes frantically searched each other; wide in surprise, fear, uncertainty.

“GO”, Shades exhaled.

Ducky was off, a blur of black and white through the hallways, raising a wind that threw those who hadn’t seen her coming off-balance. Her heart hammered, the sound leaving no space for thoughts in her brain. She just ran, willing to argue, to fight, to _murder_ —

She barrelled into the hangar, doing a small jump to plant her feet on the steely floor and skid to a stop.

“General Luna”, who she was sure was Vos regarded her. Ian was near him, straight as a rod, fury carefully contained in his immobile muscles. “If only all Generals were so dedicated to come meet us when we call.”

“What’s going on?”, she snarled, eyeing the armed guards that accompanied him. “Why are you taking one of my troopers?!”

She straightened, trying to look over his shoulder, get a glimpse of Venus among the sea of armour.

The Jedi stopped her with a hand of iron on her chest.

“ _Your trooper_ was caught smuggling _other troopers_ away from the GAR”, he drawled.

The whole hangar froze, even when most people had already been fidgeting nervously.

Ducky’s eyes went wide, mouth slightly agape, breathing picking up as her heart kept hammering and bile threatened to raise in her throat.

No. No, it COULDN’T be! With all the planning! All the precautions they had taken! How could that—?!

“General!”, a voice called, and her neck snapped towards the voice, towards Venus; who was twisting in a guard’s grip, trying to face her. “General, I’m sorry!”

_I slipped!_

She sounded desperate. Heartbroken.

“What the HELL is going on?!”, Dogma suddenly staggered to a halt beside her, a backpack slung over his shoulder as he spotted his friend being taken away.

Dani didn’t tear her eyes away from Venus. Despite the fear in them, the certainty that she was going to die or lose herself, there was a conviction in there.

The enterprise mattered more than her. They needed to salvage what they could.

Venus had to take the fall.

“I take you didn’t know”, Vos frowned at her, his tone lacking a recriminating tone. The shock in Luna’s face couldn’t be faked, after all.

“Why are they—?!”, Dogma tried to ask again, but hushed suddenly, turning to his General with a helpless snarl.

“General”, it was Ian who prodded, slightly less desperate-sounding than the rest of them but words still heavy; knowing that a decision had to be made.

Not wanting to make it.

 _Failing_ to make it.

The Commander tried to take a step towards Venus, but Ducky’s hand flew to his wrist and pulled him back with a mighty grip.

“You have proof?”, she croaked, not quite looking at anybody, just at the blurs of bodies dragging her friend away.

“Plenty. In the form of thirteen clones in various degrees of injury that refuse to talk.”

_Shit. Fuck. Pakshet!_

“We have reasons to believe that he wasn’t working alone.”

Ducky winced at the misgendering.

“I… know it must be hard for you. To have your men act behind your back and use you as a shield for this… They probably thought that if they worked from within Internal Affairs, nobody would look to close. But that’s what the Jedi Shadows are for”, he crossed his arms and leaned back slightly, all smugness.

Ducky had to tighten her grip on Ian, casting a quick glance towards Dogma to make sure he didn’t lash out. Confirming that he was just standing frozen in shock, she finally looked at Quinlan.

God, he really didn’t know how to read her, did he?

“You have done an exemplary work as Head of Internal Affairs, General Luna. I hope this incident won’t affect your overall performance. We’ll have to conduct an investigation over your troops to weed out the other traitors. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course”, she said carefully. “You’ll have our full cooperation when the time comes.”

Ratchet, Maps, Match and Shiver slipped away from the hangar.

On their way to evacuate the three residents of The Underbelly.

“Be careful, Luna”, Vos placed a hand on her shoulder and felt the shock, the hurt, the numbness of a brain in overdrive. “Be ready for attempts on your life—”

_Kill you kill you kill you kill you kill you kill you—_

“—and don’t worry; we’ll take the deserter to Kamino. I’ll update you as soon as I have something. You put yourself together, yeah?”

“’Right. Thank you.”

Those last two words were the hardest she had ever said.

Fuck, she wanted to tear out her own throat.

With a nod, a nod that _assumed_ that he knew what was going on around him _and_ inside her head, he turned and boarded the ship.

A deathly silence hung over the hangar as it lifted off.

Ian yanked his arm out of her grip.

Dani let out a shaky exhale, and another, and another, until she was panting. She fell on her knees and retched.

She distantly felt hand on her back, her shoulders, but it barely registered. They had been found out. Everything was falling apart.

The voices were loud. They were arguing. Some had a protective cadence to it, others just snarled, and she just wanted to be small, to find a place to hide and be in silence and figure out _what the fuck is going on, how did this happen—_

“I’m going!”, Dogma’s growl came through, firm as a mountain. “I was already headed for Kamino anyways!”

Ducky gulped, managing to lift her head. Shades was regarding her with worry.

“Breathe”, he murmured lowly. “Deep breaths.”

“And what are you going to do?! Assault the bloody ship?!”

“I DON’T KNOW! _SOMETHING_!”

“We’ll get caught!”

“So what?! You’re just going to let Venus be RECONDITIONED?! Huh?! You’re really going to let her carry the blame of the enterprise?!”

Ian’s and Dani’s eyes snapped to Dogma.

“I thought you were loyal here! I thought you never left anyone behind, I thought you _loved_ each other!”, he barked out, eyes wet.

“You kn—“, Ducky started.

“Of course I know! I have known for a long time! _Venus_ told me!”, he sprawled the hand that wasn’t holding the backpack with a death grip over his chest plate.

She could only widen her eyes, breathless at the revelation; guilt gnawing on her as she realized that she had fucked up, that she should have let him in on their secret long ago— She had gone behind his back: she had promised him a place he could call home, a place where he would be welcome and trusted, and she had been _lying to him all along_ —

“I’m sorry”, she sobbed, eyes cast down and tears falling. “I’m so sorry…”, she hiccupped.

Dogma looked hurt, but he—he wasn’t yelling at her. Not in the way she expected. Not in the way she _feared_.

“You told me too”, he stressed, voice breaking as he pressed his eyes shut, his grip on his bag slackening as he dropped it and brought his hands up to cover his face, angling it upwards. “You told me, half delirious after the avalanche.”

“I—“, she stuttered, head hurting, mind caught between numb and in overdrive. “You told me I—”

“I lied. I know how to lie, too”, he huffed, looking down at her before covering his face again.

Dani flinched at the attack, and did not attempt to defend herself. She steeled herself for more reproaches, but instead, the Captain gulped.

“You cried. You begged me for forgiveness and for me to hold you because you were afraid. I had to make a _detour_ so Depa’s men wouldn’t hear.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?!”, she blurted out, and realized what a stupid, hypocrite question that was.

Dogma didn’t grace her with an answer, only a hurt look that mirrored her own.

“I’m sorry”, she sobbed again, eyes lost in the middle distance.

“I don’t want you to be sorry!”, he snarled. “I want you to put yourself together and use that brain of yours to come up with a plan, because I’m NOT leaving Venus to that fate!”

He was right. Decisions had to be made. One way or another, they had to salvage what they could.

Dani took a deep breath and shifted to sit on the floor. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a few more breaths. When she opened them, her eyes were half-lidded, calm. At this point everybody around her knew she wasn’t even close to being calm, but she was _focused_.

“Saving Venus. What do you got?”, Dogma prompted.

“There’s a Separatist fleet near Kamino. Meant to take control over the clone facilities in the scenario were we… stage a coup. Using those would destroy all chances of getting a hold of Kamino.”

“Alright, so we’re trying to save that up. Going big time is on the table but not a good idea. What else?”, the Captain crossed his arms, impatient.

“Smuggling her out should be easier and more practical. Send a small group, assault the ship and book it out? It would seem as if all of the traitors banded up, bust out their leader and left”, Ian offered.

“The trip to Kamino isn’t too long from here, we don’t have time; we either prepare well and have no time to execute the plan or we don’t prepare at all and jump into a ship full of _vod’e_ and Vos who won’t hesitate to bring us down”, Pedal shook his head before going to bite on his nails.

“Okay, we can’t do anything here and neither on the way there. Can we do something on Kamino?”, Dogma stressed, now desperate. “Force help me, if I have to barge in there by myself I _kriffing_ will—!”

“Shaak Ti is on this”, Dani blurted out. “Ti knows. She can help you get Venus out.”

Silence blanketed them again; a spark of hope being born in it.

The General stood up shakily.

“If I come, we can distract whoever needs t—”

“No”, Dogma cut her. “No, you can’t come. There are investigations going on, and I don’t trust Vos. He let you go too easily. I think he might be watching you.”

Dani ducked her head. He was right. That had been suspicious. But the thought of not being able to be part of the rescue party hurt in a special way that made her feel useless.

“Don’t go alone”, Ian piped up, arms crossed and eyes hardened to calculating steel.

“I’ll go”, Hock stepped up.

“Me too”, Moss offered.

“And me”, Breeze volunteered.

Dogma glanced at his fellow COs. They all shared a curt nod.

“Get whatever you want from the armoury”, Ducky said, something dangerous in her voice.

The three soldiers saluted and ran off.

“Y’ALL!”, she bellowed, turning around to look at the clones gathered on the catwalks and outskirts of the hangar. “Keep our investigations going, but top priority is hiding any incriminating stuff! Keep our charges safe and don’t rush through things! Patience is a virtue and what we are doing is worth fighting for! So let’s make sure that we can stay in the fight!”

“Sir, yes sir!”, replied a chorus of voices; and more people scurried off and to their duties.

There were low, concerned murmurs, but nothing too agitated. Dani was grateful for that. Last thing she needed was to have a mutiny when things were already falling apart.

Her heart still thumped weird. She really hoped she wasn’t having a heart attack. Now would be a _really_ shitty moment for that. Shades was still hovering over her, but didn’t look too alarmed, so she guessed it was alright.

Dogma and Ian stood nearby, an awkward silence settled between them.

“We were going to tell you”, the Commander said shakily, eyes cast down and hands fisted in shame.

Dogma raised a hand to stop him.

“Just… drop it”, he shook his head, half-stepping away, a humourless smile flashing in his face. “I get it. You got high stakes. Couldn’t afford the let the guy who was going to let get his brothers killed just to follow the rules know.”

“Don’t say that!”, Dani roared, another wave of tears flowing out of her reddened eyes. It was enough the get Dogma to look at her. “It wasn’t because of that!”

“Then what was it?! Huh?!”, he roared back.

“I’m a FUCKING PARANOID!”, she bellowed. “I was scared shitless that you wouldn’t approve! What do you think would have happened if you said no, huh?! You think I would have just killed you?! Newsflash, asshole!!! I DON’T HAVE THE GUTS TO DO THAT!!!”

Shades shot out an arm to steady her as she swayed. God, her head hurt, and at that point she didn’t even know if it was the sensation she had carried since Echo’s call or if it had its origin in this confrontation.

Dogma blinked in shock at her words, and stayed silent.

They _all_ stayed silent, trying to get a hold of themselves, leaning on crates scattered around.

Soon, Breeze, Hock and Moss returned. They couldn’t exactly carry big guns or backpacks around Kamino without being hella suspicious, but they had plenty of places on the inside of their armour to hide vibroblades and some smaller contraband guns. Breeze carried a few detonators in their medical bag in case things got dire. They saluted farewell to their General and Commander, getting tight hugs in return.

After all, they might not see each other again; with them probably going into hiding after rescuing Venus and those who stayed being potentially caught.

The three volunteers finally saluted their Captain and boarded the ship.

Dogma turned with a shaky exhale, regarding Shades’, Dani’s and Ian’s worried gazes.

“I’ll get Venus out”, he nodded.

With the way he said it, it was clear that he would succeed or die trying.

“Contact the Separatist fleet once you are out”, Dani said, passing him a piece of flimsy with coordinates in an asteroid field, relatively close to Kamino. “Codename Ducky. You’ll want to talk to Slick.”

“Alright”, he mused, taking it and pocketing it. “Well”, he shrugged, a nervous smile playing on his face for a moment. “Wish me luck.”

“You’ll do great. I have no doubt of that”, Ian said with all the confidence of the world, thought it faltered a bit with the hesitation he spread his arms with.

But Dogma threw himself into the hug, gripping tightly and loudly patting his brother’s back.

“Open eyes, cold mind, warm heart; _vod_ ”, Shades chanted, crushing the Captain in a hug of his own.

With a last pat, the medic and Commander took a few steps back.

Dani had her arms crossed; but holding her arms as if she felt cold, not in an angry manner. The gesture blocked any attempt at a hug, though; and Dogma would have been content with just hug it out briefly and be able to take his leave, but Dani’s eyes had nailed him where he stood.

“I’m really sorry”, she said again, voice thin.

“I know. I—“, he paused, thinking what he really wanted to say. “I need time. And we don’t really have it right now.”

Ducky nodded slowly.

“Did Venus tell you who Sol is?”, she blurted out, eyes darting around before landing on him again.

“…No”, he frowned.

“Well. At least I can be the one to stop lying about this, then”, she huffed with a dry smile. “Sol is my father, Dogma.”

His eyes widened, darting all over her. She smiled dryly again. It never failed. How they just seemed to see her for the first time when she told them.

And she was aware it wasn’t a blood-tie thing. No.

She was the embodiment of what their lives could be. A thing that shouldn’t exist, but was right there.

“Whatever happens. Live”, she said.

It could have been an order. A request. A plea.

Dogma’s lips parted for a moment, but no sound came from it.

A hand cupped Dani’s nape, their foreheads pressed together.

 

Not even two minutes after their departure, Dani collapsed, gasping for breath as yet another wave of tears leaked from her eyes.

“What happened?”, Shades asked with worry, dropping to his knees beside her. He already knew what those kinds of reactions meant. “Who is it?”

“T-Tup”, she gasped, clutching her head. “Tup just d-died…”

“ _Kriff_ ”, he breathed out. “Can somebody reach Dogma?!”, he called out over his shoulder. “Somebody call him!”

“We’ve tried!”, came somebody else’s voice. Ducky’s ears were buzzing too much to tell them apart. “They’re already in hyperspace! We can’t reach them!”

“Shit”, the CMO spat, turning to Dani. “ _Shit!_ ”, he repeated, with more emphasis.

She didn’t get a chance to ask him why.

 

_CORUSCANT, Ducky. GO!_

 

Luna convulsed back into consciousness, sitting up with a loud gasp and head turning to the buzzing of her phone, placed on the nightstand by the medical bed.

“ _Kriff_ , Dani!”, Apollo called, moving to try and stop her, throwing the items he had been holding in his arms onto the nearest surface with a noticeably lack of care. “Hey, hey, hey!”

But she dodged his arms and took a hold of the device. She allowed him to push her into another bed instead.

“What the hell are you thinking?!”, he scolded her.

She looked up at him with a confused gaze.

“You fainted of _stress_! And first thing you do is get up?!”

She looked down at her phone.

**Incoming call: _EcHology_**

“Are you listening to me? Don’t you dare answering that!”

“Yes?”, she took the call, her voice raspy. She cleared her throat slightly, looking up at Apollo, who frowned disapprovingly.

Shades and Ian appeared from behind him to glare in a similar manner.

“Dani! Dani, _kriff_ , I think something happened on Kamino—!”, Echo’s voice immediately came, frantic.

“Hold on a second”, she stopped him, and activated the speaker. “Tell us what happened.”

“Fives called me! He was frantic, said Tup died and he had found something in his head: they had said it was a tumour but Fives says it’s some sort of control chip!”

The 0thers exchanged glances, frowning at each other. It was an unnerving thought. And not above what Kaminoans would do.

“Fives did—He might have done some illegal things—”

Yeah, typical Fives.

“—he was trying to get to the bottom of it, but I think he’s being chased and now he won’t pick up his commlink!!!”

“Okay. Okay, keep calm. I’m going to try and call him and then I’ll call Shaak Ti, and I’ll get back to you, alright?”

“A-Alright…”

“Talk to you in a sec.”

She hung up, fingers flying over the screen as she searched through her contacts.

“Apollo, get in the scan machine”, Shades said.

The other medic followed without hesitation as Dani selected the contact:

**Calling: _Mambo nº Fives_**

The tone dialled and dialled, but there was no reply.

“Okay. That’s not good.”

**Calling: _Shaake iT_**

Again, the call wasn’t answered.

Dani was starting to get nervous, and Ian easily picked up on that.

“Do you know someone else on Kamino?”

“No—I—Fuck!”

She tapped furiously on her phone.

**Calling: _α Dancing Queen_**

The tone dialled, and dialled—

“Who is this?”, asked a gruffy voice.

“Alpha?”, Ducky asked, hopeful.

“Yes. Identif—”

“It’s Dani Luna!”

“Ah! General! Uh, what can I help you with?”

“Listen, I hate to call just to ask and hung up; but do you know where Shaak Ti is?”

“She is on a shuttle on her way to Coruscant, escorting an ARC trooper. I don’t know anything else.”

“Okay, shit, thanks.”

And she hung up.

Ian and Dani stared at each other for a long moment.

She called Echo back.

“Echo here.”

“Okay; so Fives is on his way to Coruscant, escorted by Shaak Ti.”

“Thank the Force…!”

“No, look; I didn’t tell her to do that…”

“What?!”

“I tried to call them both, but they are in hyperspace and my signal is good, but not _that_ good… The point is that I need you to tell us all that you know.”

“I—I don’t know, Fives was sure there was a conspiracy or something, that that thing had been implanted in all of our brains and it doesn’t say anywhere what’s it for!”

General and Commander exchanged another glance.

“We have Shades scanning Apollo right now to check that.”

“Yeah, that’s great; but what about Fives?!”

“…There’s a lot of mystery revolving who and for what commissioned the army, isn’t it?”, Dani muttered, looking up at her Commander.

“Yes.”

“I think my father thought something was up, too. I think that’s why he left Terra. What if Fives is onto something?”

“It could mean a total shift of the war. AND the Republic”, he continued, the rigid stance he had stood in slowly relaxing as he sensed his General setting on a course.

“—es”, Echo seemed to have been talking to someone on the other side of the call. “I just talked to Kix. I want to officially request an EE for Fives”, he said, voice firm.

“Copy that”, Ducky acknowledged immediately. “…Hey, I know I failed about contacting Shaak Ti, but I got _lots_ of contacts on Coruscant. I’m going to call in the cavalry, alright? We’ll come out with something.”

“…Alright”, Echo breathed out shakily. “We’re also on Coruscant, so if there’s something we can do, _anything_ , please tell us.”

“We’ll do. On another page: we might have been found out. I need you to rely to everybody to lay low. Check that intel and resources are secured.”

“Will do. Stay in touch.”

They hung up, but Ducky was already searching for another contact.

“So. We’re going to Coruscant”, Ian don’t quite asked.

“Aha”, she mused, bringing the phone to her ear and already talking to Amidala in grave Spanish.

“Ian!”, Shades called out.

The Commander turned immediately, walking to his brother with two long strides

“It’s there. It took a level five scan but it’s _kriffing_ there! I need to scan you too, maybe get a couple more volunteers just to be sure.”

“I can arrange that”, Ian replied, sending a request to Bubble and Raven. “Can you figure out what it’s for?”

“I have no idea how a biochip might work. I’m gonna need Shiver’s help if I want to get anywhere.”

“That can be arranged too. But we have to get to Coruscant to secure Fives.”

“All of us? With _The Unruly_?”, Shades asked, sceptic.

“Well, we can’t just park our Star Destroyer right there, everybody would know something’s up if we appear when we are supposed to be deployed. But there’s no way a smaller ship can make it there in time, so we will at least have to make a jump to be closer and then we can send a small team in a larty or something.”

“Okay… So how do we get Admiral Kasta to change course without telling him what for?”

Ian blinked for a moment before a mischievous smile appeared on his face.

“Vod, I think you just answered that.”

 

Course was nervous AND ecstatic as he leaned down to whisper into his sibling’s ears. He cast glances at Kasta, who so far didn’t seem to notice his strange behaviour.

Alright, then. Better for him.

The vod nodded his approval of the plan and made the pertinent chances on the navigational systems. Course glanced at the other Naval Officers. They were all already aware of the situation.

Show time.

“Ready to drop out of hyperspace. Ready the vectors for the next jump”, Kasta directed calmly, as always.

By all accounts, all Officers were acting with their usual efficiency. The vector was sent and accepted by the main computer, giving a ping when it was ready.

“Jump.”

And they did. Force, they did!

The ship shuddered as the streaking lights of hyperspace swallowed them, but those were wilder, more chaotic.

“What the—!”, the Admiral cursed, hanging onto the closest projector for dear life.

The Cruiser stabilized marginally, shudders still wracking it at irregular intervals.

Kasta shoved himself into the computer, checking the hyperlane specifics.

“Course!”, he hollered, turning to said person. “Did you just—?! We _talked_ about this!”, he growled.

“On my defence: I have the General’s permission to try this route, sir!”, he jumped immediately.

“The General doesn’t get to say what route we take, _I_ do!”, Kasta roared.

Course was already reaching for his comm, ready to call Dani, but the Admiral beat him to it.

“Luna! Do you want to get us or killed or what?!”

“On the bright side: we’re not dead!”

“Not dead _yet_! _The Unruly_ is MY ship and _I_ command it! If I say we don’t take an hyperlane because it’s dangerous, we DON’T take it!”

“Hey! I named it! It’s my ship too!”

“MY ship, YOUR troops! Or must I remind you how useless you are during space battles?!”

Low grumbling came through from the other side of the call. The bridge was speechless, listening intently to the exchange.

Kasta sighed loudly in exasperation, dragging a wrinkled hand over his face.

“And the coordinates are all wrong…”, he added, gesturing to the display and shaking his head before turning to face the comm. “If you wanted to go somewhere else, you could have just SAID SO.”

In the silence, they could picture Dani pursing her lips and staring at an undetermined point in space.

“Where do you think my loyalties lie, Luna?”, the Admiral asked with another sigh, rubbing his forehead tiredly.

“Uh… the Republic?”

Kasta laughed. A rough, unfamiliar sound that took everyone off-guard.

“See, you and I aren’t so different: you went through military training to do… whatever you do, I try not to look too much into it; and I went through the Academy to get a BIG SHIP and sail the stars. That’s it. I don’t want anything else. My life is accomplished. You don’t get in my way and I don’t get in yours. _But that changed_ when you decided to steer MY BABY into the equivalent of a very, very, very, VERY SHITTY ROAD!!!!”

“ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT!”, Ducky yelled back. “I’m sorry, fuck! But we need to get near Coruscant as soon as possible!”

“Drop out of this hellish hyperlane, NOW!”, Kasta ordered to the bridge.

With one apologetic glance to Course, they obeyed.

They dropped into regular space, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

“Somebody find out where the hell we are and calculate vectors for the outskirts of the Coruscant system!”

“Sir, yes sir!”

“We’re kind of in a hurry!”, Dani piped up.

Kasta ignored her, eyeing their new coordinates.

“Well, Course; congratulations are in order, I guess. We just made an impressive jump and lived to tell it.”

The Naval Officer lighted up with a smile, but knew better than to push his luck.

“Whatever the rush is for, I’m pretty sure your reckless stunt has won you enough time. We’re going to Coruscant, but we’re using the lane _I_ choose.”

“Yes, sir…”, replied a chorus, their tone containing the very essence of rolling eyes.

 

Fives ran. Away from the med-center, away from the Chancellor, Nala Se, Shaak Ti, away from the Guard; his _brothers_.

His vision swam, but he kept running. He needed—He needed to get away, find someone who would listen—!

General Skywalker. Captain Rex. He needed to tell them. But he couldn’t contact them himself, he would get caught… He needed—Echo! Echo, and Kix, and Jesse! They would listen, they could pass the message to the Captain and the General!

The thought gave him conviction, the plan, as simple as it was, helped him keep focus, keep alive the flame of hope that had been moribund since Tup had started getting worse. His vision blurred every now and then, his steps faltered, but somehow, he managed to get to 79’s.

Force, he hoped his brothers were there…

Fives stole a hat from a drunk brother and snuck his way inside, wary of everybody who wasn’t 501st. The bar was as noisy as ever. He was glad for that: nobody seemed to have noticed him. He swept his eyes over the bar, and could have fainted in relief when he spotted the trio he was looking for sitting together on a corner. Echo was flanked by Jesse and Kix. They were pressing onto him, hunched forwards, talking in whispers.

Echo suddenly straightened and turned to look directly at him.

Fives startled and froze. Echo’s eyes widened. Kix and Jesse turned, spotted him and also froze.

The medic was the first to react, shrugging off the surprise and nonchalantly walking to the refresher. Fives followed him with his eyes, still unmoving. Jesse and Echo turned away and made small talk for a couple minutes before Echo stood up and followed Kix. Jesse busied himself with his drink for a while before turning his stool around and pointing at the door with his head, disguised as rubbing a kink in his neck.

 _Jesse is the lookout_ , Fives realized. Force, he couldn’t be prouder of his brothers.

With a grateful nod, he slipped into the refresher.

He was immediately yanked into a tight hug.

“Fives Fives Fives”, Echo chanted, holding him close. “What have you gotten yourself into, you _di’kut_!?”

He tried to reply, he really did; but with his twin there, he could only melt into his embrace.

“They said you tried to kill the Chancellor”, Kix went straight to business, a worried frown in his face. “What happened?”

“There’s—There’s a conspiracy”, he chocked out, reluctantly pulling away from Echo. “Even the Chancellor is involved! There’s this, these biochips, in our brain! It’s what killed Tup; the Kaminoans said it’s to make us less aggressive, but it’s a lie! I took mine out and I’m fine!”

Fives did not, in fact, look fine.

“Vod, calm down, deep breaths. Tell us what you know”, Echo encouraged him, gently gripping his arm.

“Are you feeling alright?”, the medic tried to feel his forehead, but Fives flinched away.

“There’s no time for that! I need to—need to talk to the General and Rex, need you to get them for me!”, he stressed, stepping away from them. “Tell them to—to meet me at these coordinates”, he stumbled his way over to Kix and before they could stop him, he entered the data on his wristcomm.

“Vod. Vod, listen”, Kix insisted. “We called help for you, an Emergency Extraction. We need you to stay with us until they come to pick you up—”

“NO! No, no strangers! I can’t—I can’t trust _anybody_!”, he shuddered, already stepping backwards towards the door.

“Fives”, Echo called out to him, soft, gentle, his flesh hand loosely gripping Fives’ fingers. “Fives, at least let me come with you—”

“NO! No, it’s dangerous. Y-You stay here. Stay safe—”

“Fives—”

“NO! This time, do as I say and stay put!”

Echo flinched at froze. Hell, Fives did too, once he realized what he had just said.

“I’m sorry”, he whispered, horrified with himself.

Before the other two could recover, he slipped away.

“ _Kriff_!”, Kix spat, tapping at his wristcomm.

Echo didn’t make a sound, still staring at the closed door.

“Echo? Echo”, the other called him softly, trying to get him to turn to face him.

“What just happened? Where’s Fives going?”, Jesse asked with a hissed whisper as he walked in.

“Jesse, take Echo. Go to the barracks or somewhere quiet. I’m calling Dan’ika.”

 

**Incoming call: _The Handsomest Of Them All_**

“Kix?”, she answered.

“Where are you?”

“Almost on the ground. Something happened?”

“He was just here. At 79’s. He’s not good.”

“Shit. Okay. Hold on a second”, she lowered the phone, sending a quick message to Padmé with Fives’ last known location. “Alright. Go on.”

“He looked—He looked sick, was very nervous; paranoid, even. Asked me to get Skywalker and Rex to meet him at a set of coordinates.”

“Do you have those?”

“Yes.”

“Send them over, in case my contacts can’t intercept him before he gets there.”

“Alright. We—We tried to tell him to wait with us for his extraction, but he wouldn’t listen! He insisted on doing it on his terms, going alone…!”

“Kix. Kix, it’s okay. I just received confirmation: there are operatives nearby that will help Fives. We’ll get him, and we’ll smuggle him out, and then he’ll be safe and able to tell us all he knows”, she explained, and her voice only shook a little bit at the end.

 _Damn_ , Fives must be real bad if he doesn’t listen to his closest brothers.

 

He kept navigating the sea of people, wary of white armour for the first time in his life. The drones were specially annoying: unrelenting once they spotted you. He ducked his head and stuck to crowds and alleys as he made his way to the place where he would meet Rex and Skywalker.

He felt—weird. His vision kept blurring and his throat was dry. But that didn’t matter. He needed—He needed to get to the meeting point…

Fives felt his steps faltering, vision tunnelling. And suddenly and arm looped around his, and he was pulled upright and forwards.

“There you are! Thought I lost you for a moment!”, a yellow-skinned Twi’lek civilian smiled broadly at him, tugging him along, as if he were accompanying her.

“Uh, ma’am, I think you got the wron—“, he tried to explain, but then her eyes zoomed in on his tattoo.

That had been no mistake.

“ARC trooper Fives, correct?”, she asked, voice suddenly serious.

“How—?! Who sends you?!”, he tried to pull away, but she gripped him tighter.

“Sh!”, she hushed him, pulling him into an alley. “Play along! We can keep you safe!”, she explained in hurried whispers.

“We?”, he panted, paranoia spiking.

“The Clone Right’s Movement!”, she specified with an excited smile. “Got word from the Chiefs! Gotta keep you safe, get you to the evac point!”

“What? No!”, he almost left right then, but the opportunity of getting help was tempting. He hadn’t thought of involving civilians, but if they were involving themselves… “Help me get here instead!”, he said, showing her the coordinates.

The woman eyed them for a moment, mouth twisting, clearly unsure.

“I don’t know, man… I have my orders…”

“You might have your orders, but I have a _mission_!”, Fives countered. “The tide of the war, the whole Republic as we know it could depend on it!”

The Twi’lek had crossed her arms, biting her lip.

“…I was warned you are good with words”, she huffed, apparently amused. “Listen, you can’t convince _me_ , but I’m supposed to pass you to another contact; so maybe you can let me do my part and try convincing _them?_ ”, she shrugged sheepishly.

Fives scowled in bewilderment. He couldn’t believe what his life had become in the last day. On one hand, I didn’t have time to lose; on the other, getting somebody to take him to the meeting point with a faster and probably safer mean could gave him the chance to take a break. Just a small one.

“Alright”, he grumbled with a defeated sigh. Force, he was _so_ tired. But the paranoia buzzing in the back of his mind wouldn’t let him relax.

“Great!”, she cheered, clapping her hands with a satisfied smile before turning away and retrieving something from behind a dumpster. “Here, put these on! You should dump the armour.”

He caught what she threw at him, unfolding a plain shirt and trousers. He eyed them warily and glanced at the civilian, who had already turned around to give him privacy. Taking advantage that those were wide clothes, he slipped them on over the armour, reticent to abandon the only form of defence he had for himself.

“I’m done”, he cleared his throat.

The woman turned and raised an eyebrow, mouth twisted in distaste, but did not comment on Fives’ poor fashion choice.

“Alright, then. Let’s go.”

She looped her arm around his and guided him deeper into the alleys, far away from the busiest streets.

“Where are we going?”, he asked nervously, started to think that he was walking into a trap and about to get executed.

“The next meeting point”, she shrugged.

“No, but I mean; where am I supposed to end up? Who are your bosses? What do they want with me?”, he stressed, trying to squirm his arm out of her hold.

She noticed and let go.

“We want you to be safe. They said you were in trouble and needed to stay out of sight until you can get an evac. I volunteered. For your safety; I do not know where are you going. I’m sorry I can’t help you with that”, she explained, voice subdued and eyes worried.

A speeder slowed down and stopped beside them. They both tensed, staring at the Kyuzo driver.

“Could you point me to the nearest tree?”, they asked nonchalantly.

“You’ve been the tree all along”, the Twi’lek snorted, and turned to Fives, pointing at the driver with a thumb. “That’s your ride. Good luck with your mission!”, she said sincerely, and slipped away.

Fives was left with the driver, who just opened the door for him. With nothing better to do and the prospect of having a vehicle at his disposition, he carefully sat down.

“Uh… Nice ride.”

“Thanks. I just stole it.”

They sped off.

_Huh_

“Listen, uh…”

“Jale. At your service.”

“Yes, Jale. Great! Uh, for what I understand you have strict orders, but I actually need to go here”, he tried, showing them the coordinates.

They glanced at it for barely half a second.

“Ah, yes. I know these. We were to intercept you on your way there if we couldn’t find you first.”

Fives froze, eyes wide.

_Damnit, Kix!!!_

“No, listen, I _really_ need to go there!”, he stressed, discreetly prodding at the speeder’s door.

Jale’s long fingers flew to lock the doors.

“Listen, I know I worded that in the worst way possible, but I need you to _calm down_ ”, they spoke lowly, trying not to make any sudden moves. They were sitting next to a man trained to kill since early childhood, after all. “The Movement will do everything in its power to keep you safe, and once you are secured I’m sure you can find a better way to do whatever you have to do—”

“Let me out. Let me out NOW!”

“…We’re already there, anyways”, they mumbled as they brought the speeder down, parked in front of a dinner. At this late hours, there was nobody there.

Jale unlocked the doors and Fives immediately threw himself out of the vehicle, crashing against a Besalisk. He would have panicked, if not for the fact that the person standing in front of him was way shorter than Pong Krell.

“Meiloroons are kind of rancid this time of the year”, the driver said.

“It’s tuber season, anyways”, the newcomer shrugged.

Jale nodded their approval and sped off.

“So. You must be Fives! I’m Dexter. But you can call me Dex”, he offered a hand to shake.

It took him way longer than desired to process what was going on, and even more to finally decide what to do. He shook Dex’s hand out of politeness, but Fives was already nervously looking over his shoulder.

“I should—“, he started, but the sound of marching feet nearby reached their ears.

“Come! This way!”, Dexter said, tugging from Fives’ arm.

He followed him into the dinner, then the kitchen, then the changing room in the back.

“Help yourself to some clothes. It’s a good idea to change them in case someone has seen you before. Do you need anything else? Food? Water? Use the ‘fresher?”

The ARC just took a moment to breath, overwhelmed by the situation. But then his throat constricted, reminding him how dry it was.

“Water”, he croaked, rubbing his neck.

“On it”, Dex nodded, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Fives slumped on a bench, head hurting. But still, he needed to think. He needed to analyse. Keep a cold head if he wanted to succeed.

He was getting passed around, with no idea of where he was going. Somewhere safe, they assured him; but for all he knew the final destination might as well be Palpatine’s doorstep. On the bright side: he hadn’t encountered any Guard patrols yet, so whoever these members of the Movement were, they seemed to know what they were doing, more or less.

Dexter returned with a glass of water and a pitch. Fives gulped down three full glasses before letting out a long, relieved sigh.

“Thank you”, he managed to say, eyelids heavy from exhaustion and dizziness.

“You don’t look so hot. Do you want me to ask if we can get you a medic?”

“N-no…”, he shook his head, trying to clear it. “I need to… I need to get to—”

The bell on the front door jingled. They both froze, staring at each other.

“Stay here”, Dex hissed lowly, making his way to the front.

Cautiously, Fives followed.

“Oh, uhm, trooper!”, the Besalisk’s voice came from the dinner, and immediately Fives ducked back into the kitchen. “Sorry to say, but we’re closed for the day. Can I help you with something else?”

The ARC leaned over the door, catching a glance of the red paint of the Coruscant Guard. The vod stood in front of Dexter, blaster held loosely in their hands. Maybe if he could circle them a little, he could wrestle them for it—

“I’ve heard the waves are low”, the Guard said, voice relaxed.

Dex made a brief gasp of shock, followed by a sigh of relief.

“The sea is calm”, he replied.

The Guard took off his helmet, greying hairs exposed.

“It’s an honour to meet you, sir.”

“The honour is mine”, the trooper chuckled. “I’ve been here for years and I still haven’t found the moment to come and have lunch. I ought to put a remedy to that.”

“You’ll be more than welcome, sir”, Dex laughed back. “Hey, Fives. It’s safe, you can come out. He’s with us.”

Reluctantly, he came out of his hiding spot. Not that he had another choice.

“Hey, vod”, the other greeted him with a sympathetic smile, leaning on the counter. “Heard it’s being a tough day.”

Fives regarded him from a safe distance, wary.

“He’s one of the bosses of the Movement”, Dex added.

“Name’s Wave. Codename Tatay. Please, use the codename unless we meet in… less dire circumstances.”

“You’re Guard”, Fives growled, not relenting a little bit.

“That I am.”

“Palpatine’s lapdog.”

“What on hell makes you think that us guards like the Chancellor?”, Wave sighed, as if he had had this confrontation many times before.

“How do I know you won’t just rat me out?”, the ARC pressed.

“Well, first of all: I’m here as member of the Movement, not of the Coruscant Guard. Second of all: I’ve heard you might have something that the Chancellor wants to make disappear, and that interests me.”

“In what way?”, Fives drawled, still tense and trying to think of a way to get away.

“In the ‘shit I better keep it safe’ way.”

“So it was you who ordered to evac me?”

“No. No, that was Apparition. They called Chief, who called me to deploy our operatives.”

Fives let out a frustrated growl.

“This is too complicated! Why can’t you just let me get to my General and Captain so I can tell them what they need to know?!”

“Because the whole Guard is after you, and we can’t guarantee your safety if you keep running around on your own!”, Tatay berated him like a tired father.

“Then just _take me there_!!!”

“Why do you want to throw yourself into the thick of things when we are offering you a _safer way_?!”

“I have CRITICAL PROOF—”

“Well then, show it to me!”

“NO!”

“Why not?!”

“Because you wouldn’t believe me! You wouldn’t believe anything that stained your precious Chancellor, now wou—”

“What if I told you that I already do?!”, Wave cut him.

Fives hushed.

“…What”, he barely managed to articulate.

“What if I told you that I believe you? That it’s totally feasible that the Chancellor is a piece of shit and has been up to some shady as fuck business since before the war?”

Dexter looked between the clones, feeling a bit as if he were intruding.

“Fives”, the Guard sighed, pressing his hand in front of his face for a moment. “I’ve been helping to gather intel against Palpatine for almost a decade. What you have—It could be the last straw! It could be what lands a killing blow! But I _need you to stay safe_. And we can help you with that, if you stay with us, if you _let us protect you_. Do you understand?”

He was breathing heavily, too caught up in the possibility that someone believed him. Someone who _didn’t know him_ at all. It was surreal.

Too good to be true.

Still, he nodded.

“Good. Good”, Wave exhaled, standing up from where he had end up leaning on a stool. “I have to go, but your pick up will be here soon. Stay safe, vod.”

“Wait! How many more pick ups are there left? Where am I going?”

“Uh, I don’t know that, vod! Chief is the one coordinating now”, Tatay replied from within his helmet. “What I do know, is that the end of the line is Apparition. Best of lucks.”

“Woah. You’ll get to meet two of the bosses in a day. Most of us never get the even _see_ one of them”, Dex muttered, four arms crossed.

Fives was not impressed, nor convinced. But he would play along for now. Dexter accompanied him back to the changing room and gave him a cloth disturbingly similar to a Jedi robe.

“A friend forgot it here”, the Besalisk shrugged. “I’m sure he has spares.”

He draped the robe around himself, basking in the meagre comfort it brought.

There was a fast, light knocking on the front door.

“Must be your pick up, wait here.”

“Hello!”, a human girl greeted cheerfully, waving energetically before straightening and clearing her throat. “Uh, the cogs have crusted! I mean—rusted!!! The cogs have rusted!!!”

Dexter chuckled humorously.

“You tried using buttons instead?”, he replied.

She snorted at the absurd lines.

“Trooper! Your pickup is here!”, he called into the dinner.

Reluctantly, Fives walked there.

“Oh, hey! Hello! I’m Trace Martez, nice to meet you!”, she offered a hand to shake. Fives accepted it, blinking owlishly at her. “Uh… everything alright?”

“I, uh, yes ma’am. Sorry. It’s just… Your hair reminds me of someone.”

“Oh! That someone has a lot of style, I’m sure!”, she nodded to herself. “Come now! I’ll bring you to your next destination!”

She waved him over, her smile seeming to contain all the excitement of the galaxy.

“Wwwwweeeeelcome toooooooo! _The Silver Angel_!”, she gestured proudly to a ship parked nearby. “I made it myself!”

“It’s… very nice”, he manged to say with an encouraging smile.

Trace’s eyes lit up. Damn, that was vod’ika material.

He sat on the co-pilot seat as she chattered about how she had built the ship one step at a time.

“My sister Rafa has helped me a lot! She takes good care of me, you know? Since our parents died in an accident.”

“…I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. We’re managing.”

They pulled in in what seemed like a repair shop.

“So, we’re here! Heads up: my sister can be a bit blunt; but she’s a good person, I swear”, she smiled sheepishly as she powered down the ship.

Fives raised an eyebrow at that, but followed her out. Stealing the ship was a solid option, but he would feel bad about it if he didn’t find a way to get it back to Trace…

“Oh, thanks the Force you’re finally here!”, Rafa fretted, hugging her sister close. “He didn’t do anything weird, did he?”

“Rafa!”, the younger rolled her eyes. “I can take care of myself just fine!”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll believe that when I get you that blaster I promised.”

The elder turned to study Fives.

“Well; welcome, I guess. Make yourself comfortable until the next contact comes and don’t fret: we’re being paid to hide you here, so we won’t rat you out.”

“Rafa!”, Trace sighed, exasperated.

“What?! I just said it to calm him down! It would comfort me to know that!”

“We wouldn’t rat you out, even if we weren’t being paid”, the aspirant to pilot added, gripping her sister’s shoulders. “ _Right_ , Rafa?”

“Right. Right.”

Fives chuckled lightly, catching the Martezs’ attention.

“Sorry, it’s just… You kind of remind me of me and my brother Echo.”

“Oh, you have a brother too?”, Trace piped up, eager to make small talk.

“Millions of ‘em.”

“Wow. Family gatherings must be hella expensive”, Rafa mumbled.

Trace elbowed her.

“Auch!”

“Maintaining-an-army level of expensive”, Fives laughed at his own joke.

He was starting to feel dizzy again.

“Is there…? Is there somewhere where I could sit?”

“Oh! Right! You must be tired! This way!”

The sisters guided him to a congregation of chairs and work benches to the side of the shop, Trace leading the way and Rafa keeping an eye on him from behind.

She was the older sibling, alright.

Trace kept chattering as he rested a bit, oblivious to Fives’ restlessness and Rafa’s watchful eyes on him. He felt unprotected, in such a wide room. But Trace’s talk did ease him a bit. It felt… familiar. Like being in the barracks again, with a newly arrived shinny that was eager to see the galaxy.

Soon enough, there was the loud noise of an old door opening at the back of the shop.

“Must be ‘Soka!”, Trace announced cheerfully.

Fives, who had already tensed up, froze. It couldn’t be. It could be another name entirely. Gisoka. Kalacantusoka. Xosokarrelus—

But no. It was Ahsoka Tano who walked in.

“Fives!”, she greeted him with a relieved smile.

“C-Commander!”, he stuttered, scrambling to stand up.

Before he could decide what to do with himself, he was tangled in a hug with her.

“W-What are you doing here…?”

“I’m here to help. I’ve been with the Movement since I… left the Temple.”

“She was with us first!”, Trace piped up.

“Thanks for the hook up, by the way”, Rafa added. “Who would have thought? This does pay-off!”

Ahsoka and Trace gave her a judging look.

“What?”

Ahsoka sighed.

“Anyways. Thank you for your help”, she told the sisters, and turned to Fives. “If you are ready, we may leave. Your evac we’ll be here shortly.”

So he was running out of time.

Still, he let her steer him out of the repair shop. It would be impossible to steal _The Silver Angel_ with Ahsoka there. Trace waved goodbye enthusiastically, so he waved back.

“Hey. You alright?”, she nudged him lightly.

“S-Sorry, ma’am. Just a lot in my mind, that’s all…”, he excused himself, taking half a step to the side to put some distance between them.

Tano frowned in worry, but did not comment.

“Hey, it’ll be alright. We’re almost there.”

“With… the Apparition?”

“Yes.”

“You know them?”

“Uh, not really…”

Fives glared at her.

“They are military, I’m sure”, she huffed, trying to reassure him. “And the one who coordinates extractions. We have done this hundreds of times, Fives. Really. It will be okay.”

“I need to get to Rex and the General”, he mumbled, becoming confused again.

“And we’ll get them. Once we know you are safe”, Ahsoka insisted, reaching to place a hand on his back.

But Fives wasn’t listening, eyes fixed on the lonely speeder, about the pass them by lazily.

_Why won’t they let me go? Why won’t they let me FIX this?!_

Without a word, he slammed his body against Ahsoka, causing her to tumble down into the ground. She tried to grab on him, but only succeeded in fisting her hand around the robe. Fives easily slipped out of it, turning away as she hit the ground. Before she could process what was going on, he jumped on the speeder and grabbed the controls over the owner’s hands, steering it away.

“Fives!”, Ahsoka called, scrambling to her feet, but the ARC trooper was already bringing the vehicle our of sight, among the terrified cries of the original owner, who was thrown out of the speeder.

The ex-Jedi had been about to pursuit, but stopped with a tight gasp to catch the civilian and save them from a long fall.

“T-Thank you!”, they stuttered, shaking where she had lowered them.

She dropped on her knees to check on them, but snarled at herself, bringing her wristcomm closer to her face.

“This is Fulcrum! I lost him!”

 

**Incoming call: _Titosaurus Rex_**

_Ah, damn. Now what?_

“Yes?”

“Dani! Where are you?”

“Already planet-side, waiting with the shuttle.”

“Fulcrum lost Fives!”

She pushed away from where she had been leaning against the hull of the ship, already walking away from it, turning a moment to raise a hand and let Pedal know that he was to wait there.

“I’m still with the General, I can’t go find him—!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay, I’ll go. Where did she lose him?”

“Near the 1313 level. But that doesn’t matter: Kix sent us some coordinates and Fulcrum says he was insisting on going there—”

“Okay, okay: I got them. Heading there now—”

“Commander Fox and the Coruscant Guard are not far behind us—”

“Shit, alright. Stall them as much as you can, I’ll get Fives, okay? Shit, I’ll knock him unconscious if I need to!”

Rex huffed a shaky laugh at that.

“I take your word, Dan’ika.”

“…Take care”, was all she dared to say.

She hung up, and jumped into the depths of Coruscant.

 

Almost there. He was almost there—

“Fives!”, a voice called from behind, and he flinched, twisting around with a jerk.

_Luna_

She stood still, legs parted, ready to take the steps that separated them; but for the moment she just blinked at him, assessing.

“Luna”, the ARC croaked, turning to her.

Dani—Dani was good, she listened, she cared!

NO! Luna was—Luna was Internal Affairs, working under Palpatine!

But—she had saved Echo. She had kept them safe until he was well enough to return to _The Resolute_ …

No! No, that was before! Before he found out before the chips! Before Tup died—

“Fives?”, her voice broke through, soft and concerned.

She hadn’t moved, just like he hadn’t; but she had lowered her arms a bit, tilting her head in concern.

“Fives, are you okay?”

No. No, he wasn’t.

She took a step forward.

“Stay away from me!”

She took two steps backwards, startled.

They didn’t say anything for a long moment, just the sound of Fives’ ragged breathing between them

“I, uh…”, she started after swallowing. “We were supposed to meet. I guess somebody told you? To meet the Apparition?”, she tried awkwardly.

“That you?”, he frowned, blinking furiously to try and clear her vision.

“Yeah.”

“No. No, it doesn’t make sense! You are Internal Affairs! You work for the Chancellor!”

“Fives”, she said, her tone a warning and a plea. “Fives, if I wanted the hurt you I would have jumped on you.”

She let that in the air for him to consider. Just as he was opening his mouth, gaze uncertain but with a tiny bit of hopefulness, her wristcomm beeped with urgency. He tensed again.

“Shit! Please, don’t leave!”, was all she could ask before taking the call.

“General Luna”, Palpatine’s voice drawled.

“Chancellor”, she replied, and Fives couldn’t tell if the surprise in her voice was faked or sincere.

He tensed, moving to take cover between some crates scattered around the alley. Dani kept an eye on him, but made no move to get closer.

“I just called _The Unruly_ ’s bridge. But your Admiral told me you weren’t there.”

“Oh, yeah… we had to make a detour… near Coruscant…”, she mumbled, wondering if she was giving out too much information.

“Huh. Well, that’s quite convenient. I need you and your men on the ground: there has been an attempt on my life and the culprit needs to be taken care of… quietly”, he ended, his voice suggestive.

Ducky refrained from rolling her eyes, but stared at an undetermined point for a second.

“Objective?”

“ARC-5555.”

“A clone? Dangerous?”

“We think he might be infected by a mind-controlling virus”, Nala Se piped up, walking into the projector. “That makes him incredibly aggressive and unpredictable.”

Dani openly scowled at her.

“A virus? Doing that? Unlikely”, she scoffed. “A fungus I would believe, but a _virus_? Bitches don’t even have chromosomes! Bitches are not even _alive_! And you want me to believe a virus could achieve the complexity to take over a multicellular organism’s nervous system? What a geneticist you are…”

Nale Se snarled in all of her Kaminoan capacity.

“It doesn’t need to take over the individual’s neural system! Just to produce the waste metabolites to upset the chemistry balance of the brain and induce an uncontrollable emotional response!”

“Ain’t no virus that can do that in this galaxy”, she deadpanned, dismissing her explanation entirely.

“And how would you know that, _field researcher_?”, Nala Se spat with all the resentment she could gather.

Ah, yes: the eternal rivalry among field researchers and lab researchers…

It was childish, really. Just bickering most of the time. But maybe it was the combination of the event of the day, the fact that it was Nala Se who was pushing her and the fact that Fives was still hiding among the crates, eyes wide and staring at her, ready to run as soon as she breathed weird; that made rage and frustration spark up and flare wildly, scorching to uselessness all her brain-mouth filters and walls built to protect herself.

“WELL, I OUGHT TO FUCKING KNOW!!! I read all about brain viruses since my mother died of FUCKING VIRICAL MENINGITIS!!!!”, she roared into the wristcomm, tears of rage and grief streaming down her cheeks.

Nala Se frowned with disdain, as if she had just said the dumbest shit ever. Palpatine looked at her intently, with something in his eyes akin to… hunger?

“Your orders still stand, General. Put yourself together, and call me only when the situation has been handled. Am I understood?”

She wiped at her face with a sleeve, pressing her lips in a grim line.

“Understood, sir”, she growled, and hung up.

Now Ducky’s breathing was the loudest.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Fives”, she panted, rubbing at her eyes furiously.

The ARC stood shakily from his cover. He had been about to run away, but witnessing Dani explode with a mix of defiance and vulnerability _to jump up on his defence_ just to break down crying after had been… shocking enough to prevent him from leaving.

His legs trembled, so he allowed himself to collapse on a crate.

“Can I come closer?”, she sniffed, a worried frown over her reddened eyes.

Fives managed a nod. His head hurt again.

Her first step gave away her eagerness to get to him, but the second one was more controlled, an effort to keep him comfortable. Finally, she knelt down next to him, looking up at him.

“Hey”, she smiled carefully.

“Hey”, he croaked back, letting out a pained exhale.

Ducky’s eyes narrowed, sharpening into focus.

“…This is a weird thing to ask, but I need you to breath out on my face again”, she said slowly.

Fives frowned at her. It _was_ a weird thing to ask. Why would she want to _smell is breath…?_

“I’m not drunk!”, he jumped, outraged at the suggestion.

“I know, I know!”, she was quick to reassure him, placing her hands on his knees to try and keep him sitting. “But I’m not a medic and I’m trying to half-ass a diagnose because you _really_ look like you’re about to keel over and I might have noticed something key but I really need you to take a deep breath and exhale again!”, she rushed, the desperate plea clear in her voice.

And well, Fives needed to breathe anyways.

Dani sniffed the shaky exhale.

“Okay. Fuck”, she blinked, wincing in concern.

“What? What is it?”

She looked up at him again, lips twisting in indecision.

“Promise not to panic?”

“Why would I panic?”, he asked, bringing a hand to cover the spot where Nala Se had injected him something.

“Your… breath smells like acetone”, she looked away for a moment. “It’s a symptom of ketoacidosis. Meaning your metabolism is off-balance, your liver thinks your body is desperate for nutrients and is making up chemistry products that ARE acting as nutrients but are also turning your blood acidic.”

Fives grimaced, horror dawning on him.

“Am I… am I dying?”

“A bit. But it can be fixed! Do you know when it started? When did you start to feel weird?”

“I-I don’t know—Nala Se injected me something, right before arriving on Coruscant…”

“Okay. Okay. At the moment, let’s keep you hydrated”, she sighed shakily, offering him her canteen. “Listen, the evac point is nearby. And now we’re kind of in a hurry so, come with me? Please?”, she asked, standing up and offering a hand to help him up.

Fives looked up at her. He only saw earnest concern and nervousness.

“I—”

He needed to get to Rex. Needed to—

NO! No, he was dying. He needed to… to live. To tell what he had discovered. What had killed Tup.

“…Yeah. Okay.”

Dani looked relieved to the point of fainting when he accepted her hand, but it was Fives who had more numbers to end up fainting. She slid a hand around his lower back to guide him through the dark streets.

It still didn’t sit well with him that she was steering him away from the meeting point; but physical discomfort was starting to overwhelm him. He felt faint relief spreading from the spots where Luna touched him, and he couldn’t help but try to follow her when she leaned away to turn to another alley. Not soon after he was only aware of her touch, following her blindly.

“Luna!”, a voice called.

“Shit!”, she spat, and pushed Fives back into the corner they had been about to turn.

Still, that move had been hella suspicious, and the group of Coruscant Guards leaned to a side to try and see who was with her, having caught a brief glimpse of white armour.

“General!”, Fox called, taking a step forwards and raising his blaster. His troops followed. “Who is wit—”

“No!”, she called, spreading her arms towards them. Some of the Guards flinched, but as always; no Force-push came from the tips of her fingers. “Stay there!”, she ordered, brain scrambling for a way out.

The Commander rose his head from where he had ducked it at his blaster’s height, perplexed.

“General—”

“Fox”, Ducky blurted out. “Do you—Do you remember when I did that favour to you?”, she tried, limbs still locked in position in an attempt to keep them away from Fives, who had leaned on the wall and was looking worse.

It was obvious Fox remembered, but he still didn’t say anything.

“I… I need you to return me the favour now.”

“Luna—“, he exhaled, incredulous, confused, grip tightened on his blaster; and she wanted nothing else than to cloak herself and Fives and run, but she couldn’t risk the Guards spotting the getaway shuttle.

“I just—I just need you to go and check _that_ alley first, okay? Real quick. Nothing else.”

God, she had never said anything so suspicious in her entire life before.

“Dani”, the Commander stressed. “I can’t—I can’t _do that_. It’s my _duty_. Just—Just show us who is with you!”, he demanded, returning to his shooting pose.

She flinched and shifted, noticing a familiar faint pressure in one of her pockets.

“Okay. Okay, how about new favour? You don’t have to go anywhere”, she slowly slipped a hand into her pocket, extracting a picture. “You just have to take a look at this first.”

She took a few steps forward and placed it on a container, half-way the distance that separated them. She stepped backwards, returning to the corner. Thank god; Fives was still there.

For an eternal moment, Fox tensed further behind his gun. The five Guards behind him were trading glances, clearly confused but awaiting their leader’s move.

Carefully, he stepped forwards. Dani took deep breaths, trying to still her shaking hands. Fox snatched the paper off the surface and walked backwards back to his group. Meeting her eyes for one long beat, he glanced down at the picture.

It took him a solid ten seconds to process what he was seeing.

“What…?”

“Sir?!”, one of the Guards behind him called.

When he looked up, Luna wasn’t there.

“Shit”, he muttered, watching as two of his men went to check around the corner.

“Alley’s clear, sir!”, they reported.

“Shit”, he said again, a gargantuan headache growing on his right temple. “Get in touch with Thire, order a—”

An ethereal blue hand curled around his head, and he fell unconscious.

 

“They’re not following us”, Ducky promised to a now barely coherent Fives. “We’re almost there. You’re doing great”, she encouraged him gently, tugging at the arm he had slung over her shoulders.

“The chip…”, he mumbled frantically. “The chip, the chip, where…?”, he patted around his pouches until he found what he was looking for, and took it out to inspect it, squinting at it.

Dani stared at it for a moment too, taking in its appearance.

“Is that it?”

“Y-Yeah… It’s mine…Tup’s was… rotten… degraded…”

“Shit”, she spat, horrified at the mental image of all the clones dying because of literal brain rot. “Fives, I’m so sorry about Tup…”

He shook his head feverishly.

“Not… Not in vain. This might…end the war. Tatay said so…”

Ducky tripped with herself, but managed to catch her balance before they fell face first on the unforgiving floor and turned her head slowly so tare at Fives.

“… _Who_?”

“T-Tatay… said it might be… the last nail to… Sheev’s coffin…”

She gripped his arm tighter, choking down a whimper.

“Fives, are you sure you are saying the name right? Is it Tatay? Ta-tay?”

He only grunted, his head lolling.

“Fives! Fives!”, she shook him a little, desperate for a clear answer.

“Fives!”, another voice called, a ship coming to meet them at the edge of a platform.

Echo hopped out of the transport, running towards them. Kix was close behind, and Dani was able to spot Pedal on the pilot seat.

Got tired of waiting, probably.

“Fives!”, Echo called him again, arriving to take some of his weight.

“…Echo?”

“You _dik’ut_! You should have stayed with us!”, he scolded him, but there was way more worry than anger in his voice.

“I-I’m sorry… so sorry…”, he cried quietly.

Echo gripped the back of his head, pressing their foreheads together.

“Don’t scare me like that, ever again!”, he pleaded.

“What happened?”, Kix asked Dani.

It took her a second to pull herself together and answer his question.

“He was drugged. His breath smells like acetone, I suspect ketoacidosis. He needs an insulin shot as soon as possible, maybe something else; but I don’t know anything past that.”

The medic moved to carefully sniff his brother’s exhale by himself.

“You’re right. Get him up, we have to go.”

“I—I’m not coming”, Ducky hesitated.

“What? Why not?”, Kix pressed, his hurry clear in his body language.

She looked back: towards where she had left Fox with the only picture she had of her parents, towards the Senate, towards the Coruscant Guard.

Towards where her father might be.

She took a deep breath, trying to invoke the cold mind, the rational thinking.

Padmé and her had been gathering proof against Palpatine for years, now. If what Fives had discovered was right; if the clone army had been created for a darker purpose, they might need nothing else.

“I think it’s time”, she replied.

Kix blinked at her, searching her eyes.

“…Are you sure?”

“No. But we have waited too much already. And we are at risk. We either strike now, or wait for who knows how long to do so”, she sighed. “Take Fives. Get away from here”, she dismissed them, taking out her phone and scrolling through her contacts.

“Dan’ika!”, the medic called, and he turned to him, ready to bully him into leaving. Before she could take in her, though, Kix hugged her fiercely. “Be careful out there”, he said into her ear, pressing slightly.

“I’ll be. You be careful, too”, she pulled away from him. “Go. Get help for Fives.”

She stepped back.

“Open eyes, cold mind, warm heart”, Kix chanted.

“Open eyes, cold mind, warm heart; tito Kix”, she chanted back, and finally turned around, Force-running into the depths of the city.

Ducky brought the phone to her ear.

“Ian here.”

“I think it’s time”, she went straight to business.

“For the…?”

“Yes.”

“How sure of this are you?”

“We either strike now, or have to wait several months for this to settle down and try again at best.”

“And at worst?”

“We get caught and killed.”

“Fair. Do you have Slick’s device with you?”

“Yeah”, she said, patting another pocket for confirmation. She slipped the transmitter into her free hand, uncovering the button.

“Well, then. Give the order, General”, the Commander said, a hidden smirk in his voice.

Dani pushed the button.

“Activate Protocol Absolute Zero.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooo.......  
> How does it feel to find out that Dani and Sol met in chapter 5 and didn't recognize each other?
> 
> Also I might make Fives adopt Trace and Rafa. Good kids  
> Also, for what I gathered, people doesn't tend to die of virical meningitis, but it was hella convenient for the narrative, so... Scientific disclaimer I guess  
> Showdown in the next chapter!


End file.
